


The Reality of Dreams

by autumnstar



Series: Redefining Family [2]
Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, OC demons - Freeform, Trixie's still the real angel, celestial pains in the arse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-21
Updated: 2017-12-13
Packaged: 2019-02-04 22:00:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 23,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12780462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/autumnstar/pseuds/autumnstar
Summary: Lucifer needs to stop the Detective from solving their latest case, before she finds out who the killer really is.[Sequel to Dealing with the Devil]





	1. Grim Discoveries

It wasn’t like the Detective to be late. On the one day Lucifer could have used the distraction of a new case the most, Chloe was nowhere to be seen. He waited outside the precinct for her, having told Ella and the team to drive on ahead to the crime scene, but other than a quick text to tell him she’d be late, Lucifer had no idea where the Detective was.

He lit a cigarette and thought about chatting to a few passersby that caught his attention, but he was put off that idea as soon as a breeze picked up around him. It blew the ash up from his cigarette, and immediately reminded Lucifer of the dream he was trying to forget.

He checked his phone again. _No new messages._

With a heavy sigh, Lucifer flicked the freshly lit cigarette onto the pavement and ground it out under his heel. The memories of his recurring nightmare started to creep back in as he tried to think of something else he could do to pass the time. Ever since the gates of Hell had opened and closed, Lucifer had been having dreams of being trapped back down there.

Every one had been the same, and every night he tried to avoid sleeping, but a week of avoiding sleep took its toll. The night before, he’d dreamt of the ash raining down over him, and when he tried to run to find an escape, he was forced back by the heat of the fiery pit. Then, like every other dream, the ground gave way beneath him and he fell. Falling was the only way he could escape the flames.

“Hey,” a voice broke through the haze of his daydream, and Lucifer looked towards the road to see the Detective parked up, leaning out of her window with a worried frown. “You okay?”

“Detective!” Lucifer greeted, neatly avoiding her question as he climbed into the car and sat beside her. “I was beginning to think you’d forgotten me.” Chloe didn’t seem convinced by his attempt at humour, but after silently watching him fasten his seatbelt, and realising he wasn’t going to say any more, she seemed to decide to play along. Much to Lucifer’s relief.

“Like I could,” she scoffed and pulled out onto the main road. “How many texts did you send asking me where I was?”

“Four,” Lucifer admitted without shame, and grinned when he saw Chloe struggling to hide her smile. “It’s not like you to be late.” That got rid of her smile, and he instantly regretted saying it. He didn’t know why his mention of her being late would upset her, or maybe it wasn’t that at all, but he couldn’t think of anything to say that might cheer her up.

The Detective glanced across to him, and he could see that she wanted to ask him something, but she was unsure. He was about to tell her that she could tell him anything, when Chloe seemed to work up her own courage and finally spoke.

“I had to see Trixie’s teacher,” she explained, and Lucifer frowned. He wondered if he should ask how her spawn was, but the fact that she’d shown up for work at all told him that her daughter must have been okay.

“She’s fine, she’s just been drawing a lot of pictures,” Chloe cleared her throat, and he could tell she hadn’t told him the whole story. Surely drawing a lot wasn’t unusual for the small human? He’d seen plenty of her pictures stuck up all over the Detective and Maze’s apartment.

“Is that sort of thing frowned upon in schools?” He asked with a frown of his own.

“Of the Devil,” she added, and Lucifer knew she’d had to force herself to say it. He couldn’t see why. In fact, it made him much more interested in the child’s artwork.

“Really?” He beamed, happily going along with the new distraction. “Did her teacher want to know who the handsome devil was?”

“Hmm, she wasn’t drawing you,” Chloe said carefully, and why did he get the feeling he was in trouble? “Not unless you’re red with wings.” That made his smile drop, and Lucifer was thankful that the Detective was driving so she’d miss his sudden change in mood. Was the child _trying_ to get her mother to find out the truth? He wouldn’t put it past the cunning little girl.

“She’s really been drawing me like that?”

“Well, _the Devil_ ,” Chloe repeated, and at least he knew that meant her daughter’s scheming hadn’t worked to convince her he was who he said he was. “You haven’t said anything to her, have you?”

“Of course not,” he answered, too quickly. “I assure you, Detective, I haven’t _said_ anything to make the little creature draw me that way.”

 

* * *

 

When they arrived at the scene, Lucifer felt as if the atmosphere had deliberately shifted to suit his mood. Oddly tired, and unsure how to handle the Detective’s daughter drawing pictures of him, the Devil looked up to the overcast sky.

“Huh,” he heard Chloe hum as she got out of the car and joined him. “I didn’t think we were expecting any rain.”

“We’re not,” Lucifer answered seriously, and followed the Detective down a narrow alley where the rest of their team was already assembled.

At the far end, through the dirt and around a couple of overflowing dumpsters, they found Ella crouched over a man’s body. He was dumped outside a fire escape, his light blue suit turned black in places by the filth of the alley floor, but there were no obvious signs of trauma. That’s what Ella said, anyway, when Chloe asked what she’d found.

“A big old heap of nothing,” Ella sighed and stood up. “It’s totally clean.”

With unhidden disgust, Lucifer looked around the alley, then deliberately stared down at the soiled ground that threatened to ruin his shoes with every step he took.

“You and I have very different definitions of the word _clean_ , Ms Lopez,” he told Ella, and the woman only rolled her eyes as though she thought he was joking, and continued on with her report.

“As clean as an alley can be,” she amended. “I can’t find any prints; no fingerprints or footprints. There’s no tire treads, no signs of a struggle, no wounds, nada. Not even an actual cause of death.” Kneeling back down, Ella looked up between himself and Chloe, who seemed just as disappointed as he felt. “It’s like the guy just… dropped dead.”

The Detective nodded slightly as she looked around, as if she’d be able to find the one clue everyone else missed, and Lucifer thought she probably could, if he didn’t feel so uneasy about her being there. It had started to build the moment he’d seen the grey clouds overhead, and the feeling of being trapped only grew as they walked to the end of that alley, only to find a decidedly boring looking human. Something wasn't right, and it wasn't just the lack of evidence or his recent nightmares filled with that same feeling of being stuck.

“What’re you thinking?” Chloe asked him, and Lucifer realised he’d been staring at her.

“I’m… just trying to make sense of it all,” he answered as honestly as he could, then pointed down at the dead man with a flick of his wrist. “I mean, how does someone so obviously boring get taken out so mysteriously?” Chloe shook her head at him, not following. “It must have been professionals, so the question is--”

“Who’d he annoy?” The Detective finished for him, and he nodded.

“Well, that’s not quite how I would have put it, but yes,” Lucifer answered, trying to make his smile seem as natural as possible.

“Got something,” Ella called triumphantly, drawing their attention back down to her. “Well, kinda. I doubt it’s how he died,  _but_...” She turned the head of the man, who’d been dumped lying face down, and put a gloved finger to the corner of his mouth. “He’s covered in dirt, but here, there’s some sorta red smudge on his skin.”

“Where?” Chloe frowned, trying to lean around Ella’s head to get a better look.

“It looks like lipstick,” Lucifer suggested, and the two women looked up at him. “A very lovely shade. Whoever wore that wanted to stand out.”

"You know," Ella said as she snapped a picture of the only bit of evidence they might have. "I think Lucifer's right."

“Of course I’m right,” he grinned. "The me's in the detail." Beside him, Chloe snorted and turned away. He just caught the glimpse of a small smile, before her back was on him and she was looking up at the building the man was left around the side of.

“This is a dance club, right?” She asked, earning a nod from both himself and Ella. The other woman stood up and followed Chloe’s line of sight along the dance club’s walls. It took Lucifer a second to realise what they were looking for and couldn’t find; cameras.

“A super shady dance club,” Ella pointed out, answering Chloe’s unasked question about the lack of surveillance. “Club 44. It’s where seedy men go to… you know.”

“Yes, Club 69 would have been much more fitting,” Lucifer agreed, trying to keep up his gleeful tone. He couldn’t let on to the Detective or Ms Lopez that something was wrong. Not until he knew why that alley felt so oppressive.

It worked, to a point. Ella shook her head at him, but at least looked a little amused, unlike Chloe who just stared and gave him a look that said, 'now is not the time.'

"You think the lipstick's from one of the dancers?" Ella asked, resuming her search of the body.

“Seems likely,” he heard Chloe answer, but Lucifer’s attention was already drifting away back down the alley. He couldn’t see anything out of place. The faces of the other officers, and the forensics team, were all fairly familiar to him by now. None of them seemed to sense what he could, and Ella and Chloe seemed to be their usual selves. What was he missing?

“Hold on,” he faintly heard Ella say, and dragged his attention back down to her.

He watched curiously as she lightly wiped the man’s pale face with a tissue, careful to avoid rubbing away the red smudge, and slowly revealed what the grime hid underneath. Leaving the lipstick trace seemed insignificant compared to the damage done to the other side of man’s mouth. The skin was grey, completely drained of any colour, and cracked and shrivelled. It looked more like something he’d expect to see on an ancient, mummified corpse, not the recently deceased.

“What is that?” Chloe grimaced, and Lucifer already knew the answer. _That_ wasn’t normal. _That_ was a supernatural cause of death. His immediate thought was the demons that had escaped Hell only a week ago, the ones that were likely behind his nightmares, but he didn’t know of any that could do that to a person’s face. Or any other body part, for that matter.

“A very angry kiss gone wrong?” Lucifer offered, in a halfhearted attempt to lighten the mood and distract the Detective. Why did Chloe have to be the one to end up on the case with the killer-demon? That was just his luck.

“Could be poison,” Ella suggested a little more helpfully. “I don’t know what kind, but… I’ll need to take blood samples--”

Lucifer’s phone rang and nearly made him jump. Not that he’d admit that. He certainly hoped nobody had seen, but they wouldn’t blame him for jumping if they knew one of his old demons was nearby, killing humans.

With only a quick wave of his hand to signal for them to give him a moment, Lucifer rushed off down the alley to answer the call. It didn’t matter that he didn’t recognise the number, he was just relieved to get out of that alley.

“Lucifer Morningstar,” he answered with a smile.

“Lucifer.” He felt his stomach drop at the sound of that voice. It was tiny and scared, and he’d hoped to never hear her sound like that again.

“Beatrice?” Lucifer glanced over his shoulder, and saw Chloe still standing with Ella, paying absolutely no attention to him. Maybe that was a good thing. It could have been nothing. The child might have just wanted to talk to him, but that voice. She sounded as if she was holding back tears.

“What’s happened?”

There was the faint sound of sniffling and whispering, and Lucifer felt the sickness of worry give way to a rush of anger. If someone was there with her and upsetting her, he’d happily make their life hell.

“A man came into class and said he worked with mommy...” The little girl’s voice broke off, and for a moment the line was silent. He felt sick. “They say you have to come and meet them.”

She gave an address, and Lucifer could just make out the deep voice of a man telling her what to say. ‘ _St. Mary’s’_ Lucifer heard the voice say before Trixie repeated it. If they were in a church then maybe the man whispering really was just a man. Unless the church was abandoned, and it really would fit demon humour to take a child to a church with that name.

“Don’t worry, child. Your mother’s here, I’ll tell her--”

“ _No_ ,” her little voice trembled and he felt an odd feeling in the back of his throat, like a lump. “They say just you.”

“Very well,” Lucifer answered without pause. He was already leaving the scene, without so much as a backward glance or an explanation to Chloe or the others. He had no idea who these people were, whether they were human or demons, but he couldn’t risk taking any of the very human LAPD with him.

It didn’t matter if it was a trap. If Trixie needed help, and he had to go without her mother, then that’s what he’d do.

“I’m on my way now, Beatrice. Don’t be--” the line went dead, “--afraid.”


	2. Lucifer's Child

It would have taken him a lot longer to drive to St. Mary’s than it took for him to fly there. In some ways, that made Lucifer grateful he hadn’t had the Corvette with him, but he’d probably have to explain to Chloe where he’d disappeared to so suddenly. He’d only just heard the Detective’s voice calling after him as he’d hurried down the road, and as much as he’d wanted to tell her the truth, he knew he couldn’t. She’d never understand, and he didn’t have time to explain.

Landing in front of a grand but crumbling building, Lucifer straightened his suit and tried not to think about the indignity of having to _fly_ to a church; abandoned or otherwise. The wings may have had their uses, but that didn’t mean he’d come to like them. He folded them away as soon as his feet were firmly on the ground, and pulled out his phone to send off a quick text. The kidnappers had said not to bring Trixie’s mother, and they probably wouldn’t appreciate him taking her father, but they’d said nothing about inviting other people.

Message sent, he pushed his way through double, oak doors, and was greeted by a stillness and unsettling quiet. It wasn’t the same unsettled feeling he’d had in the alley. That feeling had been a heavy weight, and a clear sign that something supernatural and wrong had been there. Inside the church, it was more a feeling of frustration that he couldn’t hear anything. It was funny how being in an alley, outside, had left him with a sense of being trapped, but inside that church Lucifer just felt annoyance.

The dark-wood pews where a congregation once sat were empty, some of them deliberately broken by vandals. A statue, which he assumed had once been of Mary with her hands lifted to greet the church’s flock, had been pulled to the floor and broken. Then there was the bright graffitied words, in reds and blues and greens, sprayed across every inch of the outer walls. Gangs obviously spent a lot of time in the church, but no one else did.

His Father must have been so proud.

“I was expecting more of a welcome,” Lucifer called out, barely managing to hide the anger from his voice. If they had left with Trixie, or sent him to the wrong place…

Something shuffled around at the front of the church. Lucifer stopped, listening, and heard a faint scraping noise.

With all his remaining patience, the Devil stalked slowly to the front of the chapel, mounted the steps to the pulpit, and reached up to grab whatever was hiding inside. His hand met with something wet and rough, and the creature gave out a distressed whine as Lucifer pulled it down the steps onto its back.

Just seeing the creature, panicked and bloody and carrying the stink of brimstone, reminded Lucifer of his dream the night before. He had to tamp down the false memory of being stuck there, and didn’t appreciate this demon bringing back that feeling of dread.

“M-m’lord,” the thing stuttered, and Lucifer smiled with satisfaction as he put his foot on the demon’s chest and watched it squirm; as if he could stamp out the thoughts of his nightmare of Hell.

The creature’s bright yellow eyes darted from left to right, in what Lucifer assumed was an attempt to look for an exit.

“Where is she?” The Devil demanded, but the cat-shaped creature only whined again and tried to break free. The phrase _seeing red_ had never felt more apt. Lucifer’s anger was quickly rising, and dangerously close to bubbling over. “Don’t make me ask again, Pruflas.”

“P-p-please. Please, m’lord-- my _King_ , I never wanted to take her!”

“And yet...” He pressed his foot harder into the demon’s ribs. “Here we are.”

“It wasn’t--” he wheezed, “Wasn’t my idea. I s-swear it. It was Shax. He said we needed your attention, and he knew how to get it. I never thought he’d st-steal your child, m’lord. Honest. I wouldn’t lie to you.”

 _My child?_ That made Lucifer pause, and Pruflas spied his chance to break free. He wiggled out from under the Devil’s weight, his arms and legs bending unnaturally, and scrambled backwards towards the altar.

“Where is Shax?” Lucifer asked, his tone dropping dangerously low. He had a dozen other questions he wanted to ask. Namely, why did they think Trixie was his and how had they found out about her, but they weren’t important at that moment. All that mattered was getting the girl back, not clearing up concerns about her paternity.

“The s-sacristy,” Pruflas hissed, his whole bloodied body trembling in fear, “M’lord. He p-put the child in there. To keep her s-safe.”

“ _Safe_?” Lucifer spat. “You took an innocent girl and you expect me to think you wanted to keep her _safe_?” He laughed, but it was bitter and seemed to set Pruflas even more on edge.

Approaching the demon cat, Lucifer grabbed him by the scruff of his bloody neck and hauled him to the side of the church, into a doorway hidden just around the corner from the pulpit.

“If you’re lying to me, Pruflas...” He warned the cowering creature, and threw him towards the door. “Open it.”

The cat opened the door obediently, the hinges screeching unhappily as they moved. Pruflas’ clawed hands trembled, and he stepped back with an exaggerated bow to let Lucifer in first.

“You first,” Lucifer insisted, and shoved the demon into the narrow passage.

Pruflas’ fear was almost palpable in such a confined space, as he followed the demon to a second door. Every rattling bone and twisting joint in his body seemed to be shaking, and the blood that oozed down his tawny fur looked almost black.

“M’lord,” the demon bowed again as he opened the second door, and then Lucifer saw her. Sat on a bench at the far end of a grey, damp room, Trixie was trying hard not to cry. It may have fooled the demons, but Lucifer could see the faint shake of her shoulders and the shiny glint in her eyes.

He didn’t want to scare her any more than she already was, but he felt his anger begin to burn red and hot in his eyes as he turned to Shax.

The second demon was much more human-looking than the cat. A little like Mazikeen, he was handsome, confident, and with only parts of his exposed pale skin mutilated. The skin on the lower half of his face looked as though it had been ripped away, revealing a wide, rictus grin.

As soon as he saw Lucifer, he put his human glamour in place.

“My lord,” he greeted calmly, with only a slight bow of his head. “I knew you’d come.” The deep voice, Lucifer realised, had belonged to this demon. Shax had been the one to tell Trixie what to do and say, and if Pruflas could be believed, Shax was the one to suggest the kidnapping.

“Child,” Lucifer spoke calmly now, ignoring the arrogant little demon at her side. “Come here.”

He suspected neither demon would stop her from approaching him, and he was right. Trixie was allowed to run straight over to him and wrap her little arms around his waist.

“Are you hurt?” He whispered down to her, and even though she shook her head, he felt the material of his shirt slowly growing damp. _Now_ they had made her cry.

“I need you to walk back out into the church,” Lucifer instructed gently, and carefully pried her arms from around him. “Find somewhere to hide, and I’ll come and find you.”

She didn’t move, and he found himself kneeling down in front of her, to the sound of Pruflas’ gasp of horror.

“Beatrice,” he said quietly. “Maze is on her way. Go out there and wait for her.” That seemed to get the little girl moving. She nodded, doing her best to stay brave, and ran out of the room. She was definitely her mother’s daughter.

“My lord,” Shax said with obvious shock as Lucifer stood back up. Neither of them had ever seen the Devil kneel, not for any of them. He supposed they must have been stunned he knelt for a human child.

“You will not speak,” Lucifer told him sharply. “Either of you.” He turned on Shax suddenly, and smiled at the brief flicker of doubt in the demon’s dark eyes. “What made _you_ think you had the right to approach _me_ , hm? _You_ , an insignificant little demon.”

Shax shrank away from him, all confidence and colour draining from his face.

“My lord,” Shax hesitated, holding up his hands. “Please… Don’t send me back?”

“Send you back?”

“To Hell, my lord. Please don’t. We’ve been through so much, you and I,” the demon said, with far too much familiarity for Lucifer’s liking. Shax always had possessed an inflated sense of his own importance. “Sodom and Gomorrah, my king, the fall of Babylon!” The demon listed off. “You wouldn’t send me back for wanting to relive the good old days, would you?”

“Oh, I’m not going to send you back,” Lucifer laughed, and Shax gave him a shaky, almost hopeful smile. “No. No, I’m going to make an example of you.”

Down the corridor, where Trixie had disappeared into the main church, Lucifer heard the huge oak doors open and close.

_Perfect timing._

“Mazikeen!” He called over his shoulder, his burning eyes fixed on Shax. The demon squirmed under his stare, and his already pale face turned ghostly white when he heard Maze’s name called.

Footsteps behind him were his only indicator that his friend was there. Their relationship may have changed, but for Trixie he suspected his demon wouldn’t mind playing their old parts.

“Get rid of this pest, will you?” It was a question, not an order, and he hoped Maze would notice the distinction. Just like he noted the lack of a _my lord_ or _king_ as she stepped around him.

Lucifer had always loved to watch Maze fight. Everything was perfect and predatory; from the practised twirl of her blades, to the arch of her back as she pounced, and how effortlessly she could take out any prey. It was always a pleasure to watch, and seeing his demon cut down Shax with only two swift slashes of her knives was no different. The other demon had barely had a chance to fight back before it was all over.

It was a shame, really. Lucifer would have liked more of a show, but he supposed quicker was better with the little one waiting.

“Lovely,” he applauded happily as Shax collapsed. “Nicely done, Mazikeen!”

His demon gave a bow of her head in recognition of his praise and, mood turning severe, Lucifer directed his attention back to Pruflas.

“Now,” he said as the second demon cowered away, “Take this stray back to Lux, I want to find out what he knows about killing humans. I’ll see to the child.”

“What will you tell Chloe?” Maze asked, concerned, as she sheathed her blades.

“I’ve no idea.” He was sure he’d think of something. The truth, the full truth, was something that Chloe would never accept. That was if she didn’t blame him for putting her daughter in danger in the first place. She had been kidnapped to get his attention, after all, and there was the slight case of mistaken paternity. Lucifer would deal with that later. He had too many questions for now.

“ _Oh_ ,” he added as an afterthought, as Maze dragged Pruflas behind them. “I’ll need your car.”

The demon stopped as they entered the main building of the abandoned church. In the pews, towards the church entrance, he saw a familiar little face peering at him from over the back of the seats.

“How am I supposed to get this scum to Lux without my car?” Maze complained.

“Well, I can hardly _walk_ the child back to her mother, Maze. Her legs are far too short for that,” Lucifer dismissed, and the two of them stared at one another until Maze huffed and threw her keys at him. His demon knew how reluctant he was to use his wings unless he absolutely had to, and he’d already used them far more than he would have liked. With any luck, in a week or two, he’d be able to find a way to do away with them permanently.

With a nod of his head in thanks, Lucifer watched Maze pull Pruflas out of the church, and then turned his attention to the little girl watching him.

“You don’t need to hide now, child,” he smiled tightly, trying to keep his tone light as he approached her. “It’s all been taken care of. They won’t bother you again.”

Was that the right thing to say? He was trying to reassure the small human, but she still looked shaken.

When he got to the end of the pew, she jumped up and ran to him, and Lucifer awkwardly patted her on the head as she clung to his hip.

“Right, well… Shall we?” He asked. Trixie nodded, but when he realised she wasn’t going to let go to walk out with him, Lucifer picked her up.

“Let’s get you to your mother.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See, Lucifer and me would never let anything bad happen to Trixie (apart from her getting kidnapped in the first place). Thank you so much to everyone who left kudos and/or commented on the first chapter! I always really appreciate the feedback.


	3. Hell on Earth

Lucifer knew that calling Chloe whilst driving would annoy her, but he had done it for a very good reason. He told the Detective he had her daughter, that she’d been taken out of school because of some little demons, and he was going to take the child home. All of that was true, and if Chloe took it to mean  _he’d_  been the one to take Trixie out of school, that wasn’t his fault. The fact that she couldn’t see his tight smile as he said it, or see how quiet Trixie was, was exactly why he’d decided to tell her over the phone.

She’d sounded annoyed with him at first, until he mentioned how upset Trixie was, and that she’d chosen to call _him_ and not her or Dan.

“I couldn’t tell you why, Detective,” Lucifer insisted when Chloe asked again why her daughter wouldn’t call her own parents. “I was just as disturbed as you are.”

Chloe sighed. She sounded frustrated, but not as angry as Lucifer had expected.

“Right, I’ll head home now,” she agreed and then said, after a short pause, “Is this why you ran off earlier?”

“Yes. Apologies for that, Detective, but I could hardly leave the child alone in her time of need. She was depending on me,” Lucifer answered, casting a worried glance to the quiet little girl sat beside him. She hadn’t said a word, but once he’d helped her into the passenger seat of Maze’s car, she had at least smiled at him. Just slightly.

“You should have told me,” Chloe’s voice on the other end of the line brought him back into the moment, and he had the feeling she was about to say something else, when a very friendly driver decided to beep their horn at him.

“Lucifer,” the Detective said slowly, with rising annoyance. “Are you _driving_?”

“Of course I am, Detective,” he replied breezily, weaving the car through a set of frustratingly slow convertibles. “Maze was kind enough to lend me her car.”

On the other end of the line, Lucifer heard Chloe take a deep breath, and he could just imagine the look on her face as she tried to stay calm.

“We could have gone together,” the Detective pointed out. “Or, you know, I could have gone by myself. Why didn’t you tell me?”

 _I did want to, Chloe_ , Lucifer thought, but instead out loud he said, "You were busy, Detective."

“It’s my job to be there for her, Lucifer. She’s my daughter.”

"I know she is. That’s exactly why I dropped everything to go and help the little imp myself," he said as if it were perfectly logical thinking. The child was very lucky to have such a caring mother, and he hated not being able to share this particular truth with Chloe, but it was for her own sake as well as his.

Chloe was quiet for a moment. He almost thought she'd hung up on him, she was so quiet, before she finally replied.

“Promise me you won’t do it again?” She asked, and he smiled.

“You have my word. I won’t take your offspring out of school.” He glanced across to Trixie as he said that, and the little girl stared back at him. “Not unless you want me to,” he promised her.

“Right. Thank you,” the Detective answered, satisfied. He could tell just by the sound of her voice that she was starting to smile. “And I mean it. It’s actually weirdly charming you care so much about Trixie.”

“You’re most welcome, Detective. What else are charming partners for?” He hadn’t expected to be thanked, but if Chloe was pleased with him, then he’d happily accept her gratitude.

With that, the call had ended and he’d driven Trixie in silence back to the home she shared with her mother and Maze. He wouldn’t make her promise not to tell her mother what she’d seen. It wouldn’t be like their deal to keep his devil face a secret. If the little spawn needed to talk, she should at least be able to talk to her mother. Every child deserved that, and if that didn’t work, he could always give the child the number of his therapist.

“Don’t tell mommy,” Trixie pleaded with him as if she could read his mind. “I don’t want to scare her, and she’ll be mad at you. We could make another deal.”

“Beatrice,” Lucifer said carefully, turning to face the girl in the passenger seat. “Your mother cares about you, and that’s… well, that’s very important.”

The little girl bit her lip, deliberating on what he’d said.

“I took a feather,” she admitted quietly, and at least she looked guilty about it.

When he only stared at her, stuck between admiration at her cunning and annoyance at himself for not noticing a stolen feather, Trixie carried on.

“When you took me flying. It’s only a little one, but I shouldn’t have. I’ll give it back if you don’t tell mommy.”

Lucifer wondered if the child had deliberately taken the feather, intending to use it in the future to force him into another deal, or if it had just been childish curiosity. Trixie was smart, and certainly had a devilish streak, but he didn’t think she’d ever try to trick him.

“Very well,” he conceded. If she was so desperate to keep their adventure in the church a secret, that she’d admit to stealing from the Devil himself, Lucifer wouldn’t tell her mother.

“You’re better at this than most adults I’ve dealt with,” he couldn’t help but praise her as he helped her out of the car, and she finally gave him a bigger smile.

“Will you come back later?” Trixie asked quietly. “I can give you the feather then.”

“I have something to take care of first.” He wavered. “Maybe you could convince your mother to come to Lux later.”

That made Trixie smile brighter.

“Okay,” she agreed, sure that her mother wouldn’t turn her down. “She’s been talking about you a lot.”

“Has she, indeed?” Lucifer grinned as he brought the girl to Chloe and Maze’s front door.

“Yeah,” Trixie nodded, a little spark of her childish enthusiasm returning. “She _really_ wants to talk to you.”

 _Ah_. Lucifer had forgotten about Chloe’s suspicions of him influencing her daughter. Maybe he was, given how savvy Trixie was becoming at making deals, but that was another problem he’d have to worry about another day.

 

* * *

 

The drive back to his club, after leaving the girl with her worried mother, couldn’t have gone by fast enough. Lucifer parked Maze’s car in a hurry, rushed through Lux and into the elevator, and practically burst through the doors as they finally slid open.

He had so many questions he needed to get through, that he _needed_ answers to, but he wasn’t prepared for the sight that met him. He’d expected Maze to be a little rough in bringing Pruflas back, but he hadn’t expected to see a human tied to a chair in the middle of his penthouse.

He was an olive-skinned man, with a narrow face, dark hair, and yellow eyes that--

“Pruflas,” the Devil greeted, realising who it was. The demon never had fully mastered the art of glamour. His human eyes were always bloodshot, almost tired-looking, with the pupil’s still slitted like a cat’s. “I almost didn’t recognise you.”

Pruflas mumbled something against the tape covering his mouth, and Maze appeared at his side to rip it away. Lucifer winced when he noted the demon’s facial hair underneath, and the sharp dip in the demon’s cheeks. His human face was even more drawn than Lucifer had realised, as if he hadn’t eaten in a very long time, and those eyes were just distracting.

“This won’t do at all,” he tutted, and left the two demons to go and fetch something from his wardrobe. It didn’t take many moments, and it was worth the brief distraction.

“The things I do for you demons,” he commented upon his return, after a brief moment of deliberation over which style to pick, and slipped a pair of Ray-Ban wayfarers onto the demon’s face.

“There,” Lucifer smiled. “Now you won’t make the humans uncomfortable, _and_ you’re accessorising. That’s very important if you want to stay here.”

“Thank you, m’lord?” Pruflas stammered, frowning in confusion. “I can s-stay, then?”

“Maybe. After you’ve answered a few questions.” Lucifer straightened up and moved to the bar to pour himself a drink. Back to business.

“The child. How did you and Shax find out about her?”

“It was Shax,” Pruflas answered, unable to get the words out quick enough. “He said he’d seen you with her. Flying, or s-something. He said she was yours, he was sure of it. You’d never p-put up with a human child, he said.”

Lucifer doubted that story, for several reasons. Maze had been keeping watch. She would have sensed if another demon had been nearby. Either Pruflas was lying to him, or Shax had lied and Pruflas had no idea. That didn’t account for how Shax would know about Trixie, though.

“So you agreed to kidnap a child you thought was mine?” Lucifer asked, and Pruflas hesitated. “Well, as ideas go, that’s one of the worst I’ve ever heard. Wouldn’t you agree, Mazikeen?”

“Yeah,” the lilim nodded, and curled her fingers over Pruflas’ trembling shoulder. It was barely an hour since they’d watched Maze kill their other demon friend, Lucifer didn’t blame him for being terrified.

“It’s kinda unbelievable,” Maze purred.

“Mm,  _very_ ,” Lucifer agreed and sipped his drink. “So, come on, I know you didn’t leave Hell to kidnap children. What were you and Shax really after?”

Pruflas was still fearful, but he’d fallen stubbornly silent. Lucifer didn’t like that.

“Don’t tell me the weeping and gnashing of teeth finally got to you?”

“You weren’t there, m’lord. We had to find you!” Pruflas confessed, and it was too clean an answer, as though the feline was just trying to flatter him. “Honest. Hell isn’t the s-same without you!”

 _I’m never going back_ , Lucifer wanted to say, reminded again of his dreams. The last time he’d been down there had been to save Chloe, nothing more. He would never have gone back if not for her, and he’d ended up being trapped by his own projection of Uriel, but he’d made it out. Unlike his brother. He should never have been reduced to a mere projection. Uriel should have been back at the gates of the Silver City, boring people into a second death with his welcome speech.

“Yes, I’m sure it wasn’t the same without me,” Lucifer repeated. “It must have been a real _nightmare_ for you,” he drawled pointedly, but Pruflas didn’t seem to understand. He just stared at him and trembled.

 _Odd_ , Lucifer thought. He’d been certain the escape of his demons had had something to do with his recent bout of bad dreams.

This particular demon was definitely hiding something, he had to be. Lucifer looked to Maze, who gave a single nod to show she knew what he was thinking. She knew the demon cat was lying. What Lucifer couldn’t work out was _why_. Aside from him being a demon, all of the hordes knew how much he hated liars, especially those that lied to his face. If Pruflas wanted to get into his good graces, the last thing he should have been doing was lying.

“What about the dead man with the dry lips, then?” Lucifer asked, and the sudden change of subject caught Pruflas by surprise. “How did you bump him off, deprive him of chapstick?”

“What?” Pruflas looked between them in a panic. “M’lord-- My _king_ , I didn’t kill anyone. I s-s-swear. You know I wouldn’t lie to you!”

“ _Do I_? So far you’ve given me nothing to prove your loyalty, Pruflas." Lucifer took a deep breath and another sip of his drink. There was no point in losing his temper now. His anger wouldn’t get answers out of the cat, but he knew something else that would.

Nodding once, Lucifer watched with a fixed smile as his demon whipped out one of her knives and held the point to Pruflas’ jugular. It should have worried him how much he was reminded of their time in Hell, torturing the damned and wayward demons alike, but it didn’t this time. It didn’t even worry Lucifer that a part of him, a very small part of him that he was choosing to ignore, enjoyed it. Joy was the exact opposite of what he’d been feeling in his nightmares, but Maze was certainly enjoying herself. Her wide grin was testament to that.

“How many demons did you let escape before you helped Amitiel?” Lucifer coolly questioned, taking a sip of his cognac.

“Which angel’s that, m’lord?” Pruflas asked nervously, gulping against the sharp tip of Maze’s demon blade.

“ _The angel at the gate_. The one you helped.”

“There were...” the cat stuttered, dithering. “There were two angels. I only helped one, m’lord, I swear. The one with your blade.”

 _That couldn’t be right_ , Lucifer thought. Pruflas must have had it wrong. The demon must have been stupid enough to mistake one of his own for an angel, because surely he wouldn’t lie with Maze’s blade to his neck.

“There was only one angel at the gate,” Lucifer told him carefully. “Amitiel.”

“No, m’lord. Sorry, but there were two. The one I helped, and then when I left her--”

“When you ran away,” Maze corrected.

“When I left, m’lord, I saw another. A…” Pruflas struggled against his binds and the knife, his panic rising.

“A _what_ , Pruflas? Spit it out.” Lucifer stepped so close that he loomed over the trapped demon, and the shaking of his human form started all over again.

 _Why was he so nervous?_ Lucifer wondered. _What was he hiding?_

“A much scarier one,” the demon made himself say, barely able to string a sentence together. “Nothing like what I’d expect of an angel. They were just… destroying the souls that got out, m’lord.”

 _Oh_.

Realisation hit Lucifer like a crashing wave, sweeping his breath and control away.

How had he been so blind? Maybe it was his anger at the demons for taking Trixie, or because he hadn’t been able to sleep with all his dreams of Hell, but suddenly he understood. He’d assumed the killing had been another attempt to get his attention. That was a stupid, _stupid_ mistake. Now Chloe was investigating a case involving someone much more powerful than a lowly demon.

“I have to go.” Almost dropping his glass in his hurry to put it down, Lucifer rushed to the elevator, leaving behind two very confused demons.

“Where are you going?” Maze called after him.

“I know who it was,” Lucifer hurried, pressing the elevator button. “I need to find them before the Detective does.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poor Chloe's being kept in the dark for a while longer, but I think it's for her own good. Apparently Lucifer and Trixie agree.  
> Thanks again to everyone for the kudos and comments! I'm trying to keep updates fairly regular.


	4. Very Hedy Lamarr

Finding Chloe hadn’t been a problem, but convincing her to meet with him had been. The Detective was already in her car, on her way to a second murder, when she called him to ask that he meet her there.

Lucifer had had to think fast. He couldn’t have Chloe anywhere near that crime scene, unprotected, until he got there.

“I’ll go with you,” he’d said quickly, “But you’ll have to pick me up, Detective.” Lucifer reminded her that his car was still outside the precinct, and assured her he had no way of picking it up now that he’d returned Maze’s car to her.

That was how, far later than he supposed Chloe would have liked, him and the Detective arrived at the scene of a second murder. It was in a small apartment this time, where two young roommates lived. The place was tiny, especially when compared to his own apartment. It had two bedrooms, a shared bathroom, and an open plan living area that was full of officers and the forensics team.

The place was light and decorated in pretty pastel colours, but the air felt stifling. It wasn’t because there was a body lying in one of the bedrooms, Lucifer didn’t think, but there was something stale and suffocating about being in there. It was an unsettlingly familiar feeling, accompanied by the faint scent of lilies.

One of the officers brushed past him, jostling Lucifer’s arm.

“Pardon me, sir,” the man said, his voice gravelly and familiar, but when Lucifer turned to look at him there was no one there.

He suddenly felt even more uncomfortable than before. Just how tired was he?

“The roommate found her,” he heard Chloe tell him, as she beckoned him to follow her into the victim’s bedroom.

In contrast to the middle-aged man lying in the gutter, the latest victim - Melissa Flores - was much younger and far more attractive, and lying half-naked in the middle of her own bed.

“So,” the Detective began when she saw Ella photographing the body. “Same symptoms as before?”

“You mean the weird, suction-lip thing?” Ella asked, waving her hand in front of her own mouth. “Exactly the same.”

“Melissa’s roommate said she just got outta the hospital,” Dan explained as he joined them in the room, notepad in hand. “Apparently she wrecked her car last week. She was lucky to survive.”

“So maybe our John Doe from the alley was in the hospital, as well?” Chloe concluded.

“It’s worth us checking out,” Dan nodded. “I mean, we have no other leads.”

“Bit of a stretch, isn’t it?” Lucifer interrupted, finally drawing attention back to himself. He’d listened carefully this time, and all of the things that Ella hadn’t found, were enough to confirm what Lucifer had guessed.

The lack of evidence was a relief, but he knew that still wouldn’t stop the Detective. The similarities between the victim’s lips didn’t mean they were murdered, or connected in any way the police could prove. The only connection they could find, Lucifer realised, was that they both must have survived a near-death experience last week; right as the gates of Hell were opened and letting souls escape.

“I mean, they both happen to die twice, a week apart?” Lucifer mocked, hoping to distract them from their only lead.

“Yeah, well,” Chloe said, not exactly agreeing or disagreeing with him. “We should check the hospital Melissa went to anyway. See if anyone recognises our John Doe.” It wasn’t her fault she was a ridiculously good and determined detective, but Lucifer still had to push back the urge to groan.

It’d be okay, he told himself. Even if John Doe had been in the same hospital as the recently deceased, there was still little else connecting them.

“Well, if there’s no evidence,” Lucifer sighed heavily, backing towards the door and feigning disappointed. “There’s not much else we can do here.”

“What?” The Detective frowned and turned to him. “You insisted I bring you here, and now you just wanna leave?”

“Yes,” Lucifer smiled. “I’m sure Ms Lopez and Daniel will survive without us… Probably.”

“Lucifer,” Chloe said slowly, her frown softening into a look of worry. “What’s going on?”

“I just think we’ll have better luck elsewhere, so...” He swept his hand towards the open bedroom door, but Chloe didn’t budge.

 _Of course not_ , Lucifer thought. She was serious about her job, and unless he had a plausible excuse to give to her for leaving the crime scene so soon, she wasn’t going to follow him. He sighed.

“ _Right_. You three stay here and I’ll...” _Look for the killer by myself?_ “I'm going for a walk.”

Dashing out of the room before Chloe could question him further, Lucifer pulled out his phone to call Maze. If he couldn’t get the Detective away from the crime scene, and convince her to go somewhere safe, then he needed a Plan B. His backup was Maze, and maybe Pruflas. He could hardly look for the culprit by--

A hand slipped over his mouth and pulled him backwards.

With frustrating ease, Lucifer was dragged out of the apartment and down the corridor, to the echoing sound of clicking heels. He could have struggled, and maybe that was the smart thing to do, but he already knew who’d grabbed him before they took their hands away.

“Still creeping around, I see,” was the only greeting he gave to his attacker when he could breathe again.

Lucifer dusted down his jacket and straightened his cuffs, hoping that it wouldn’t be too badly creased. He’d forgotten that this particular sibling could walk among humans unseen. Being surrounded by people didn’t mean that him, or the Detective, would be safe.

“Nobody wants to face death,” his sister pointed out to him once when he’d questioned her gift from Dad. Lucifer had understood it then, sometimes being invisible had its merits, and her abilities were infinitely better than the ones given to Amitiel.

“You wouldn’t speak to me otherwise,” he heard his assailant say, in her soft Scottish brogue.

“I wouldn’t usually, no,” Lucifer answered with a forced smile.

He turned to greet his sister, and it was disconcerting to see the same false smile mirrored back to him. He was reminded of how similar they were, and her matching dark eyes and hair didn't help, either.

She was tall, too, and she was made even taller by those ludicrously high heels Lucifer had heard clicking as she’d dragged him along. Not that he didn’t approve of her choice of footwear. The red heels did go nicely with her expensive black skirt and blouse.

"I must say, I'm loving the new look, Azrael," he mocked. “Very Hedy Lamarr.”

The roll of his sister’s eyes told him she wasn’t there to play games.  _Pity._

“Still as witty as ever, I see. I presume you’re here for the demon?”

Lucifer frowned at her, genuinely puzzled. He’d sensed the wrongness hanging in the atmosphere in the victim’s apartment, but he’d assumed that was something to do with Azrael herself. Not another escaped demon.

“I’m here about the escaped souls,” he corrected when his sister only stared at him expectantly. “I’m taking a shot in the dark here, but you wouldn’t happen to know anything about them, would you?”

“We all have a part to play,” Azrael told him as if that was answer enough. “Father gave me the task of dealing with the rogue souls.”

“Well, congratulations, and how’re you managing that without your blade?” Lucifer intoned. “I’m guessing it’s something to do with your choice of lipwear?”

“Och, you noticed,” Azrael smiled with bright red lips, as if he’d paid her a great compliment, and took a step forward. He caught a whiff of lilies and tried to lean away, but his sister’s hand on his shoulder stopped him. She leaned in, completely invading his personal space, and pressed a light kiss to his cheek.

“It’s nowhere near as powerful as my blade was, but to an escaped soul it’s still...”

“Deadly?” Lucifer suggested, and Azrael grinned.

“Exactly!”

Taking a step back, the other angel straightened her blouse and looked down the hallway towards where she’d pulled him from. Nobody had noticed yet. Lucifer supposed she was somehow hiding him with her Dad-given abilities. He really wished his sisters would stop turning up and doing things like that.

“I told Amitiel I’d check up on you,” Azrael admitted, her tone dropping to a whisper. “Found any demons yet?”

“No, because it’s not my job,” he answered bluntly. Lucifer wasn’t about to admit that he’d been worrying about his old domain quite bit. “I’m no longer the ruler of Hell, remember?”

“So… You’ve not caught a single demon?” Azrael frowned, confused.

“I have other things I’d rather be doing,” Lucifer answered with a smirk. “Did you really drag me away just to ask that?”

“Aye,” his sister admitted flatly. “And you sound like you don’t care.”

“I don’t, but Amenadiel might. If you can pry him away from my therapist long enough, I’m sure he’d be happy to do Father’s bidding.“

“Lucifer,” his sister whispered, although she was suddenly so angry that it sounded more like a hiss. “This is your job! _Demons_ are on Earth. Do you have any idea what that means?”

Lucifer hummed, pretending to think about it, and then smiled.

“Hell is empty and all the devils are here?” Azrael narrowed her eyes at him, and his smile split into a bright grin. “Did I ever tell you about the time I met the Bard himself? It's a funny story, actually--”

“ _Stop_ ,” she growled, and he didn’t think he’d ever seen her look so angry. “You have a responsibility, Lucifer. They’re _your_ demons!”

“Not anymore,” he told her curtly. Azrael looked a satisfying mixture of furious and disappointed, but the sharp smile her conflicted look turned into was decidedly less amusing.

“How is the child?” She asked sweetly, and Lucifer wondered if sudden impatience and anger could be contagious.

“That was you?” Azrael half-shrugged at his question, suddenly passive and serene. “You weren’t just at the gate to stop souls escaping. You told the demons about the Detective’s daughter,” he went on, his anger rising when his sister didn’t answer. “That’s why Maze didn’t sense any demons watching me with the child. _There were none._ ”

“Well, aye. You needed a nudge to find your wee pets. I thought you’d appreciate me sending them your way,” she answered calmly, all anger quickly forgotten, as if she really couldn’t see a problem with what she’d done. “That smug one, what was its name? Shack, or Shag, something like that? He was all too happy to hear about your play date.”

“I bet he was.” He’d never fought with this sister before, not physically, but Lucifer was getting close to happily changing that. “So you put an innocent in danger.”

“I knew they wouldn’t hurt the child if they thought she was yours,” Azrael reasoned. “I kept a close eye on her, when they took her to the church.”

“That’s worse!” Lucifer snapped, and he felt his eyes burning red.

“I had to think of something to shake you into action. You’ll not catch any demons while investigating me, brother,” Azrael explained, suddenly so blasé about the whole thing. She seemed to think he was overreacting.

“You don’t get it, do you? The Detective won’t give up until she finds out what happened,” he assured her, quietly fuming.

“Do you take me for an ameteur? I’ve been the angel of death long enough to know how grumpy humans get about killers.”

“Yes, I wonder why,” Lucifer drawled.

“I’ve a plan, but you have to trust me. Your Detective will get what she wants, you can stop wrestling with your demons, and I get to complete my job for our dear old Dad. It’s a win-win-win.”

That didn’t sound good. Whatever it was the angel of death planned, there was only one certainty of what it would involve, and he doubted Chloe would appreciate his sister’s help. He wasn’t even sure why she would decide to help, after everything else she’d already done.

“Why now?” Lucifer asked dubiously. “What do you want in return?”

“You always were the suspicious sort,” she answered, and when he only stared at her she gave him a long-suffering sigh and placed her hand on his shoulder. “We all do crazy things for the ones we love,” she told him with a smile. He still wasn’t convinced.

“Really? I don’t think Dad would love this plan of yours, whatever it is.”

“Not him, dear,” Azrael corrected, lifting her hand to gently cup his cheek. It reminded him of their mother, and Lucifer wasn’t sure how he felt about that. “I meant you. I love _you_.”

“Lucifer?” _Oh, bloody Hell._ Lucifer didn’t need to turn around to know who was standing behind him and probably wondering who the woman claiming to love him was.

“Detective!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sis is no sweet peach, but at least she loves Lucifer, right? I know a lot of people have their own versions of Azrael, but I've been really wanting to make up my own for a while. So, I hope you all liked my take on her.  
> Thank you again to everyone who's left kudos and comments so far, it really means a lot!


	5. Pulling Away

**Chloe**

“ _I love you._ ” That was all Chloe heard, said by the beautiful woman who was tenderly cupping Lucifer’s cheek. If that wasn’t bad enough, the way her partner looked at the dark-haired woman made her feel even worse. It was a look of pure wonder, like he couldn’t quite believe the woman loved him, but he wanted it to be true. Chloe felt as if she was intruding, and regretted saying Lucifer’s name.

He turned to her quickly, breaking away from the other woman, and she spotted the bright red lipstick printed onto his cheek.

“Detective!” Her partner didn’t seem pleased to see her, despite his beaming smile, but maybe he was just unhappy that he would have to introduce them and explain himself. Not that he _had_ to explain himself.

Chloe started to apologise and retreated back towards the crime scene, but of course, Lucifer couldn't just let her go with some dignity.

"Detective, wait--!" He implored, but Chloe kept walking until she felt him grab her hand. She turned slowly, reluctantly, to see the definitely too-bright and charming smile of her partner. She felt stupid for ever falling for it.

“Let me introduce you,” Lucifer insisted as he tugged her back down the hall to where the beautiful woman watched them. She seemed so calm, and almost amused by Lucifer's antics, with not a hint of the jealousy Chloe had expected.

“This is Azrael,” she heard Lucifer say, but her eyes were fixed on the much taller woman smiling down at her. Chloe wanted to pull her hand away and tell him she didn’t want to know the name of his latest lover, but he held her firmly as he gestured to the other woman with his free hand. “My sister.”

_What?_

Relief and embarrassment flooded through her suddenly, and she tried to brush off how jealous she’d actually felt. Chloe didn’t want to think about those feelings, but now that she really looked, she couldn't believe she hadn't seen the similarity before. She really must have been jealous, her detective skills switched off by it, to miss the matching black hair, dark eyes, and that bright signature grin.

“Detective,” Azrael - because _of course_ Lucifer’s sister was called that - smiled that same smile and reached out to shake her hand, which Lucifer promptly batted away.

“Don’t touch her,” he warned, and Chloe wasn’t sure if he was talking to her or his sister. “And definitely don’t kiss her.”

“Not even a quick peck on the cheek?” Azrael suggested, and Lucifer looked at her in a way that Chloe assumed was intended to be a warning. He put his hand on his sister’s back and hurriedly guided her away towards the apartment elevators.

“It was nice meeting you, dear,” the other woman waved goodbye over Lucifer’s shoulder, but before Chloe could respond or wave back, Azrael was ushered into the elevator by her brother and sent away.

“Did you seriously just tell me not to _kiss_ your sister?” Chloe asked in an attempt to ease the awkwardness between them once Lucifer returned to her side.

“No,” he answered slowly, as though he couldn’t believe she even had to ask. “I told my sister not to kiss _you_.”

“Right,” Chloe nodded, her smile slowly starting to return. “Is that why you have...” She trailed off and pointed at her own cheek. “ _A quick peck on the cheek_?” She knew she wasn’t the greatest at accents, but she did her best to mimic Azrael’s, which had been completely different to Lucifer’s. It made her think of his brother, Amenadiel, and a whole slew of questions flooded through her mind. Why did Lucifer and his siblings all sound so different?

It took Lucifer a second to realise what she was hinting at, and when he did he looked flustered. That wasn’t like Lucifer. He never got embarrassed when openly discussing all of his lovers, why should an innocent kiss from his sister be something he wanted to hide? He was up to something, hiding something, and it grated at the doubt already lurking in Chloe’s mind.

“So,” she cleared her throat, watching as Lucifer rubbed at his cheek to remove the red lipstick. “Ella says they probably won’t find anything else here.” He didn’t respond, even though she deliberately paused to see what he had to say. He usually had some sort of input, whether Chloe actually wanted it or not, but this time he just nodded for her to continue.

“I’m gonna go to the hospital. Ask about our John Doe.” Still nothing. _Huh._ “Are you coming?”

“No,” Lucifer answered quickly, too quickly. “No, I think you’ve got it all covered from here, Detective.”

“ _Seriously_?” She tried to keep her voice down, Chloe didn’t want to argue with him - especially not in front of their coworkers - but Lucifer was definitely up to something. She was certain of that now.

“You insisted I bring you here, and now you really just wanna leave?” He nodded, about to say something, but Chloe didn’t want to hear it. She held up her hand, silencing him immediately. “No. You can’t just walk in and out whenever you feel like it, Lucifer. Something’s been going on with you, and I...” He looked hurt. His jaw tightened, and he seemed resigned to whatever it was she was about to tell him. It was as if he already knew she’d snap at him.

“I don’t like it,” Chloe finished in almost a whisper. “You’re clearly not sleeping, you’re not helping me with this case, and you’re… you’re keeping secrets from me.”

Lucifer remained silent, and she knew why. He didn’t have anything to tell her that wouldn’t be a lie, or that wouldn’t confirm what she already knew. They both knew it, and he had no defence.

Staring at one another, Chloe’s insides flipped between anger, hurt, and worry. She wanted to be angry at him for all of those secrets, for his inability to be honest with her, and she was hurt that he wouldn’t tell her the whole truth. Something was going on that her partner felt he couldn’t trust her with; something that meant he was losing sleep and covering things up. She didn’t know how much longer she could ignore Lucifer keeping secrets from her.

“It’s like you don’t wanna solve this case,” she said, just to have something to break the silence, because she already knew it was true.

Reaching out, Chloe took hold of his arm and gave it a reassuring squeeze. She could feel his warmth even through the fabric of his sleeve, and she had to push back the memory of how warm he felt when she’d hugged him in the past. She doubted Lucifer was in the mood for a hug now.

“I’ve been neglecting Lux far too much recently,” he tried to defend as he looked down at her hand on him, but it was a poor excuse. “And we can’t solve this case without any clues, Detective.”

“Which is why I’m going to the hospital to find some,” she reminded him, her anger winning as she took away her hand. “ _Alone_.”

Lucifer looked as if she’d struck him, but he didn’t say anything. He didn’t try to calm her down, or to comfort her, he just accepted her ire as if it was inevitable.

Chloe knew then that that was it. He really was just going to ditch her in the middle of their investigation.

She felt that same agitation with herself, for ever falling for Lucifer’s smooth talk, slowly crawling back. It ate away at her, telling her that Lucifer wasn’t as honest with her as he claimed. It hurt, but not as much as it did when her partner turned to leave. He had his phone out as he got into the elevator, and wouldn’t even look her way as she called out for him to wait.

 

* * *

**Maze**

“Got it,” Maze ended the call and dropped her phone onto the bar. The demon behind it, pouring her a drink, flinched at the sudden sound but didn’t spill a single drop of Lucifer’s expensive whiskey. She was impressed.

“Lucifer’s coming back,” she told Pruflas. “He says you can stay. For now.”

It was difficult to read the demon’s expression with those shades Lucifer had insisted he wear, but Pruflas looked at her so suddenly that she could almost _feel_ the hope radiating off him. She might have laughed at the idea of a demon with hope, had she not been so displeased with the idea of him staying there.

“I can really stay?” Pruflas asked, handing Maze her drink.

“If you tend the bar,” she nodded.

Pruflas fell silent, his shoulders slumping a little, and Maze reached out to pull the sunglasses from his face.

“What?” She smirked, mocking him as she met bloodshot cat eyes. “Did you think he’d let you stay for free?”

Setting the glasses down on the bar, the lilim slid off her stool and took her drink over to Lucifer’s leather sofa.

“What do you think he’ll do to the other angel?” Pruflas asked as he watched her sit down.

“He’ll do what he thinks he has to to keep Chloe safe,” Maze paused, thinking, and gave a one-shoulder shrug, “But I doubt it’ll come to that this time.”

“What makes you say that?” The other demon asked, clearly stunned at the idea of Lucifer ever being lenient.

“Lucifer loves his siblings,” she explained with a sigh. “He just won’t admit it.”

Maze didn’t trust the overgrown feline, but Lucifer’s love for his family, no matter what else he claimed, was fairly obvious. He’d fight with them and denounce their self-righteousness, he’d done it often enough with Amenadiel, but whoever the other angel was at the gates of Hell, Lucifer wasn’t likely to kill another sibling. Not after what happened to Uriel.

The demon cat stayed silent after that, waiting for Lucifer’s return. Maze was thankful for the quiet; it gave her time to think. She could tell something was wrong with her friend over the phone. For the last week, since the gates of Hell had opened and closed, Lucifer hadn’t been himself. He’d been avoiding sleep and sending her and Amenadiel out to look for the escaped demons. They’d had no luck, so far. Maybe that was why he’d sounded so displeased on the phone, and about ten minutes later when he landed on the balcony, why he looked displeased as well.

“What happened?” Maze asked.

“It seems Pruflas was telling the truth,” Lucifer told her as he entered the penthouse, his voice too sweet and smile so fake. “There was another angel at the gate. One that knew all about the escaped demons, and decided to tell them of our adventure with the child.”

Maze stood up, slowly, trying not to capture Lucifer’s attention as he stared at Pruflas. The demon shakily slipped his shades back on, like they could offer him some form of protection if he hid his demonic eyes. Lucifer stalked closer to the bar, and Maze carefully walked after him.

“I think you failed to mention that bit, didn’t you?” He asked, the sweetness in his voice turning acidic. Pruflas gulped and started shaking again; even more than he had when she’d held her blade to his scrawny throat.

“I didn’t know, m’lord,” the demon promised, hands up in surrender. “Honest. I didn’t! Shax s-said--”

“Shax said a lot of things, didn’t he?” Lucifer interrupted.

Maze was just a step or two away from him when, quicker than she could see, the Devil pulled one of his own blades from the aether and lunged over the bar. The thin, trembling man had no time to back away, or to even scream, before Lucifer pulled him forward by his shirt and slammed his head onto the counter.

“Remind me what Shax said about the child?” His tone had turned deceptively calm, and Maze couldn’t decide whether that was better or worse than the barbed edge his words had carried before.

Even she was nervous now. Pruflas looked like he may die of a heart attack before Lucifer got the chance to kill him himself.

“I didn’t know!” Pruflas repeated desperately, his face pressed into the cold granite of the bar and glasses completely askew on his face. “I escaped with another- Ah! Shax was already long gone! He f-f-found me and told me he’d s-seen the child himself. Please, my king!”

“Mazikeen,” Lucifer said deliberately, the curve of his blade pressed underneath Pruflas’ jaw. She looked back up to Lucifer and saw that his eyes were glowing red. “Do you believe Garfield?”

It was then that Maze realised, that despite her distrust of Pruflas, she actually did believe him. He may have had some hidden motive for wanting to stay with her and Lucifer, but he wasn't lying about how he got there. It was Lucifer she was more worried about at that point. His anger, while partially understandable, seemed displaced. It couldn't have just been Trixie's kidnapping that had pushed him over the edge. Something else had to have happened whilst he was out with Chloe.

"Who's the other angel he saw?" She asked, and Lucifer looked confused. He clearly couldn’t see why it mattered.

“Azrael,” he told her.

“Well,” Maze stepped forward, closing the gap between them, and took his hand into hers. “I wouldn’t trust the angel of death. Whatever the cat’s up to, I think Shax used him.”

Lucifer’s eyes were fixed on her, burning hot, and Maze was sure she could feel the heat reaching out to her. It drew her closer. Carefully, ignoring the voice telling her to stop, the lilim pulled Lucifer’s glowing blade away from Pruflas’ neck. She held his gaze, expecting him to reprimand her, but he let her guide his hand away and the fire waned in his eyes.

“Mazikeen,” her friend whispered, but she had a feeling he’d meant for it to sound more like a warning.

“Pruflas isn’t the one we should be punishing here. It’s your damn sisters who caused all this.” Maze knew she was pushing it. She should have stayed quiet, but something in her compelled her to stop Lucifer. Something was wrong with him, and he was hiding it away behind his anger.

“Talk to me, Lucifer,” she urged, but she could already see him beginning to close up.

“I should get ready,” he told her, pulling away from her hand suddenly and hiding his blade. He released Pruflas and the demon jumped back. A small drop of blood trickled down his neck, and his glasses were twisted, but he seemed far too afraid to fix them.

“Ready for what?” Maze frowned, confused.

“Dearie me, you’ve forgotten already?” Lucifer asked in false concern. “Lux opens soon,” he reminded, as if she could forget after living and working there for five years.

When she didn’t respond, Lucifer gave her his winning smile and leaned into her personal space. He should have known that little trick wouldn’t work on her, not anymore, but Maze wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of leaning away.

"Come on, Mazikeen," he purred, eyes pointedly looking at her lips. "Don't you want to dance with the Devil?"

“You can’t be serious...” She intoned, but Lucifer only grinned brighter and headed to his large closet, presumably for a new suit now that he’d creased his current one.

“You’re welcome to join me,” he called back to her, and Pruflas, as well. “Maybe we’ll find some more strays to bring up here.”

That was it, Maze worried. He was _definitely_ running from something, and she wasn’t about to stick around to watch him make things worse for himself. She always had to clean up her former-Lord's messes, apparently now wouldn’t be any different. If Lucifer wasn't going to take responsibility, then Maze would find and dispatch the remaining demons herself.

“We have work to do. Whatever happened with Chloe has to come second now,” Maze called after him. “You can’t keep avoiding this, Lucifer!”

No reply came, and she sighed, knowing she wouldn’t get one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For some reason, I struggled with writing this chapter from Lucifer's POV, so I decided to switch it up a bit and give a little insight into what Chloe and Maze are both thinking. The next chapters will go back to being from Lucifer's POV, though.  
> Thank you for the kudos and comments, as always! They really mean a lot.


	6. Scary Dreams

The evening before had become a haze after he left Chloe. Lucifer remembered the anger draining from the Detective’s face as he abandoned her, and the sound of her voice calling out for him to wait as the elevator doors slid shut. He remembered her frustration that he wouldn’t tell her what was going on, because he knew Chloe wouldn’t stop looking for his sister if he told her the truth.

That was why he’d rushed with beating wings back to Lux; why he’d threatened Pruflas until Maze calmed him down, and he spent the rest of the night drinking. Lucifer didn’t want to remember any of it. He tried to erase the memory of Chloe’s anger, his sister’s return, and all of the demons that had recently escaped, in alcohol and music and sex.

The man - Edward? Eduardo? - had kissed Lucifer first, as he stood from his piano and Lux’s DJ started up the music again. Then he’d led Eduardo by the hand, up to the penthouse and his bedroom.

As nice as the dark-haired man was, he didn’t distract Lucifer like he’d hoped. After it was all over and he’d fallen asleep, he simply stepped from a troubled reality, back into his troubled dreams.

It was the same dream that had plagued him the night before. He was standing amongst the columns, surrounded by the doors that led to individual punishments. Some shook as the souls banged against them trying to free themselves from their own guilt; some were chained to keep in the souls that screeched and wailed on the other side; and others were eerily silent.

The columns themselves were dark with layers of the forever falling ash, that swirled through the air and clung to his suit. The only little sparks of light came from the glowing embers being blown in from the nearby pit. Hell had no other lights that deep into the ashfall. The sky above was just nothingness. There were no stars, nor sun or moon. Not even lightning, Lucifer noted, but maybe that was a good thing. He had fallen like lightning, after all. He didn't need the reminder of that to mingle in with his dreams of being trapped back in Hell.

Just like the night before, a weight started to settle around Lucifer. He felt anchored to the spot, as it became harder and harder to breathe. Around him, the screams of the damned and the crackling of hellfire seemed to grow louder, and he ran. He ran through the labyrinth of columns, out towards the red glow of the Hellfires of Tyre, where everything was bright and burning. A wall of immense heat hit him, and Lucifer was finally forced to stop.

Then, like the night before, the ground beneath his feet began to crack like thin ice over a black lake. The crack split and webbed out underneath him, and Lucifer fell.

He jumped awake, disrupting the sleeping human pressed against him, and untangled himself from Eduardo’s arms. The heat of Hell’s fires clung to him, even as he stood naked in the middle of his bedroom, trying to catch his breath. He could still smell the sulphur, and feel the suffocating weight of being trapped. He needed to get out of there.

Something stirred behind him, and Lucifer turned to see Pruflas peering around the doorway curiously.

“M’lord?” The demon asked quietly, but Lucifer knew it was more out of fear of him, than it was a fear of waking the sleeping human.

“Stop calling me that, Pruflas,” the Devil sighed. He didn’t want anything to do with Hell, and that included the titles from his days as its ruler.

“Sorry, m’lor-- _Sorry_.” Pruflas stuttered, but still obediently did as Lucifer asked. It was too obedient; too much of a reminder of all the demons who’d once ran around doing his bidding. He just didn’t have the energy to correct Pruflas again.

“Where’s Mazikeen?” Lucifer asked as he walked into the en suite, with Pruflas hurrying after him. The demon cat didn’t seem to even notice that his master was naked, and might want to get dressed in peace.

“Away, sir. She said she was going to go do what you should be doing,” the feline informed him. “And then she was heading home.” Lucifer turned to look at the cat.

“What _I_ should be doing?” He frowned, and glanced in the direction of his occupied bed. It was funny how he could feel so alone when there were people - well, a person and a demon - in his penthouse. The feeling of being trapped, and the need to get out, began to stir in his stomach again. Maybe Maze was right. He had responsibilities, to himself and to others, that he should have been doing.

“Would you like me to pick out a suit for you, sir?” Pruflas asked, trying to be helpful, but that really was too much like being back in Hell. Had Pruflas really returned just to be his servant again?

Sending Pruflas away, Lucifer hurriedly showered and put on a fresh suit that he’d picked out for himself. He instructed the demon to tidy up, and to politely make excuses for his disappearance to Eduardo when he woke up. Then he left.

 

* * *

 

At any other time, Lucifer would have loved speeding through the streets of LA in his Corvette, breaking as many laws as he could. It was a rush, and a brilliant distraction, but this wasn’t any other time. Lucifer didn’t want to have to deal with the people, the traffic, and any cop that might try to pull him over. He’d decided to fly, instead, with absolutely no idea of where he was going.

That’s what he told himself, anyway. Even as he landed softly outside the Detective and Maze’s apartment, Lucifer told himself he hadn’t been planning to go there. It had just happened.

He tried to be quiet, for once, as he let himself in. He didn't want to wake anyone. The Devil wasn't there to talk about his feelings with his demon, or to cry on the Detective's shoulder. He just needed somewhere to be, with familiar company, where he didn't feel isolated.

“Lucifer?” A little voice asked, followed by the sound of a door sliding open.

Peering further into the apartment, dimly lit by the lights from outside, Lucifer saw the silhouette of the small human standing outside her bedroom door.

“Shouldn’t you be asleep?” He questioned softly, keeping his distance in case she decided to tackle him in the dark.

“I was,” Trixie said as she switched on a lamp, “I had a bad dream.”

She turned to him, rubbing her eyes, and Lucifer noted the little purple toy Trixie hugged tight in her other hand.

This wasn’t what he’d expected at all when he’d landed outside the Detective’s apartment. He’d been planning to raid her cupboards for whatever drinks Maze had stashed away, maybe go through the Detective’s CD collection, but not this. Lucifer didn’t know how to comfort a scared child. He was sure he’d done a terrible job after the church incident.

“Well,” he said cautiously, and took a step or two closer to the girl. “So did I.” That seemed to interest the sleepy child. Her eyes widened slightly, as if she couldn’t believe _he_ had nightmares too.

“Did you dream about my mom as well?” She stage whispered, clutching her stuffed alien with both arms now.

“No,” Lucifer frowned, and reminded himself in time that it was probably best not to tell Trixie that he _enjoyed_ the dreams he’d had about her mother. “I was in Hell,” he told her instead. Unlike all of the adults he knew, who would have rolled their eyes whenever he mentioned being in Hell, Trixie nodded as if she understood.

“Mine was about mommy,” she confided, still whispering loudly, and plopped herself down in the middle of the sofa.

“I’d gathered,” he whispered back, not sure what to say.

“I lost her,” Trixie explained, and Lucifer nodded. That really did sound like a terrible dream. “We were covered in grey snow, and there was this monster with big, black wings…” The girl trailed off, then quietly added, “It took her away.”

For a moment, a look of fear came back to Trixie’s face, and she looked at him with round, sad eyes. “I wished you were there. You could have flown in and saved her.”

Lucifer didn’t know what to say to that. The human brain really did come up with all sorts of crazy ideas, half of which he often got the blame for. He had no idea how to make the child feel better. Comforting her after her ordeal with his demons had been bad enough, and one of them had been a real threat. How did he protect her from her own imagination?

“I would have done,” Lucifer agreed, quietly sitting down beside her. The little girl shuffled closer, leaning against his side, and neither of them said anything else. They were quiet for a minute or two, whilst Lucifer watched Trixie playing with her toy.

“Who’s this?” He asked, remembering something Chloe had told him. Apparently it was good to play along with a child’s delusions, although the Detective hadn’t used that exact word.

“This is Astro,” Trixie told him proudly, as if it was obvious. “Dad gave her to me. He said she’s from a planet where no one has nightmares. If they do, Astro chases the bad dreams away!”

“Daniel told you that?” Lucifer asked in disbelief. “He’s better at improv than I thought.” That was one thing Trixie didn’t seem to understand. She frowned slightly, looking back down at her toy, and Lucifer worried he’d upset her.

“He says Astro means 'star' in Spanish,” the girl chose to inform him, as though that would convince him that her dad knew what he was talking about. Lucifer doubted that, but he couldn’t deny that Daniel at least _tried_ to be a good father nowadays.

“It does,” he agreed. “And as far as fatherly gifts go, yours chose well.” That seemed to please the little girl. With a toothy grin, she dropped the six-legged purple alien into his lap and ran back into her bedroom.

After a second or two of listening to her rummaging around, Trixie joined Lucifer back on the sofa and held out her hand. Resting in her palm, and glowing slightly in the low light of the room, was a fluffy, white feather.

“Here,” Trixie said, “I’m sorry I took it.”

“Oh,” he replied, not sure what else to say. Lucifer hadn’t exactly forgotten about his deal with Trixie, and her promise to return his stolen feather, but it hadn’t been high up on his list of things to worry about. It had only been childish curiosity that had compelled her to pluck it from his wings, and she’d at least kept it hidden. After everything the girl had been through, and his growing fondness for the small human, Lucifer decided he didn’t need to make a deal with her for him to keep her secret.

“That feather’s a lot like your toy, in away,” he told her, not reaching out to take the feather back. “It’ll protect you, from more than just bad dreams.”

Trixie frowned, looking between him and the feather in her palm, then slowly pulled her hand back. She carefully cupped the feather between both of her hands, and stared down at it as she answered him.

“But you’re still scared,” she observed, looking back up at him. “You have loads of feathers and your dream was still scary.”

“That’s not the same thing.”

“You don’t need to feel bad,” the girl told him seriously, lifting a little hand to his shoulder. She seemed to be mimicking her mother. “Everyone gets scared,” she said, her attention going back to the feather. “I was scared of those bad men at the church.”

Lucifer had hoped Trixie would bounce back from her ordeal with Shax and Pruflas, but hearing her bring it back up, he realised he’d been far too confident in how tough the child was.

“Not to worry,” he said lightly, and awkwardly pat Trixie on the back. It made her smile, but she seemed to be more amused by his efforts to comfort her than actually comforted. “I’m going to make sure that won’t happen again. You’re safe, child.”

“I know,” she smiled, and he was struck by how much she trusted him. “Maze said the same thing.”

“Well, Mazikeen is sometimes right,” Lucifer promised, a playful smile on his lips. “And my Maze never gets scared, like me. I spent aeons ruling Hell, how could I be scared of it?”

“I’d be scared,” Trixie admitted, and it was unexpected. Almost as unexpected as him suddenly knowing exactly what to tell her.

“You won’t ever be going there,” he assured her, and continued when the girl remained silent, watching him. “I’ve known a few children to end up downstairs, and you’re nothing like them. I mean, you’re very tactile and strangely perceptive, but nothing to really worry about.”

A quiet laugh, badly muffled, came from the stairs, and the two of them turned quickly to see a familiar face peeking around the corner at them.

“Detective!” He stood awkwardly, passing Astro the Alien back to Trixie. “I didn’t mean to wake you, I was just--”

“You didn’t,” she smiled, wrapping her arms around her daughter as the little human ran over to her.

“I didn’t?”

“No,” Chloe assured him. She didn’t say anything else for a moment, and Lucifer stood still, quietly watching her. Trixie clung to her waist, her toy squished between herself and Chloe’s leg, and the Detective gently brushed her hand through her daughter’s hair. He could just make out the feather peeking through Trixie’s fingers.

“The station called,” Chloe told him. “I was gonna text you. I didn’t find anything at the hospital, but we just got an anonymous tip about our suspect. We’ve got an address, if you wanna come with me?”

Lucifer didn’t miss the hopeful note in her voice, and it brought back all of the things he’d tried so hard to forget. He really had hurt her. After their argument the previous evening, he was not going to make the mistake of leaving Chloe alone again.

“Of course,” he nodded, and glanced down at the small human. “If the little hellion will let go of you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There we go, the fluff I promised back in the first chapter! There is more fluff to come, eventually.  
> Thank you to everyone for their feedback so far, it's all really appreciated!


	7. Grey Snow

After putting her offspring back to bed and leaving her in the care of Maze, who Lucifer promised to keep posted, Chloe and Lucifer set off for their suspect’s apartment.

He had to begrudgingly hand it to his sister. Whatever Azrael’s plan had been, he was impressed she’d been able to find a potential killer for them so quickly. Chloe told him on their drive there that the man’s name was given as Simmons, and Lucifer wondered if he was another escaped soul.

“Can you smell that?” Chloe asked as they left the elevator, straight out onto a corridor lit by glaring fluorescent lights. They highlighted every bit of dirt and damp on the off-white walls, and all the stains in the grey carpet.

“Frankly, Detective, I’m trying not to smell anything,” Lucifer answered, about a second away from covering his nose so he wouldn’t have to sniff any more stale air.

“It smells like lilies,” the Detective commented, as they came to a stop outside a green door. The paint was peeling and in just as much need of money and care as the rest of the corridor.

A sense of unease started to creep up Lucifer’s spine as they stood there, and he noticed the same sickly sweet smell. It wasn’t just the stifling, dank feeling of the corridor itself, or the obvious scent that death herself had been there, it was like a warning. Something wasn’t quite right, and Lucifer was sure it wasn’t just his inability to trust his siblings.

“Hold on, Detective,” he reached out for Chloe’s hand but it was too late. She’d knocked on the suspect’s door, and he held his breath as he listened for movement on the other side.

“Mr Simmons?” The Detective called through the door, and when no answer came, she turned to him with an amused smile. It was only then that Lucifer realised he was still holding her hand.

“Well--” He pulled his hand away quickly, clearing his throat. “Maybe we should come back some other time?”

“We can’t,” Chloe whispered, reaching out to knock again. This time he was quick enough to still her hand, and she looked back at him curiously. He knew she was right, they couldn’t come back later and risk Simmons disappearing, but he couldn’t ignore his unease. A quick look around wouldn’t hurt, he reasoned with himself as he released the Detective’s hand again.

“I could try opening it?” Lucifer offered. Chloe’s smile faded slightly, as she looked between him and the suspect’s door. She was clearly considering it, but after all the times she’d told him to stop opening locked doors, he couldn’t really blame her for her hesitation.

“I don’t know,” she said finally, but didn’t tell him _not_ to open the door. “You know how I feel about that, Lucifer.”

Reaching around her for the door handle anyway, Lucifer held Chloe’s gaze as he pulled on it and felt the lock give way. He pushed the handle down, with a soft click from the opened lock, and gave a mock gasp of surprise.

“It’s unlocked,” Lucifer said in a loud whisper, as Chloe looked sceptically down at his hand. Surely she didn’t think he’d somehow managed to pick the lock whilst she’d been gazing into his eyes?

Casting him a suspicious glance, the Detective reached for her gun and carefully pushed the door open. Inside was dark, but the smell of the corridor followed them, hanging even heavier in the living area than it had outside. That feeling of foreboding, which kept twisting in his gut, became worse as Lucifer followed Chloe into the apartment. Something in him kept telling him to get the Detective out of there.

“Are you sure we can’t come back later?” He asked, close to Chloe’s ear as he leaned down behind her.

“Maybe we should,” she agreed quietly, to Lucifer’s surprise, but as she turned back towards the door something must have caught her foot. Something crunched underneath her shoe and she slipped, slamming into Lucifer’s chest as he reached out to catch her.

“Detective?”

“I’m fine, there’s just--” Pulling away from him, much to his disappointment, Chloe reached for the light switch to see what she’d slipped on.

Lucifer half-wished she’d kept the light off. The dim, yellow bulb lit up a dreary looking little living room, with chairs overturned and a broken coffee table. A small drinks cabinet had been upended, covering the floor and furniture with glass and alcohol.

“Miller 64,” Lucifer read from one of the labels in disgust. “Goodness me, if ever we needed proof this man is our killer, Detective, there it is.”

“Are you seriously worrying about our suspect’s drink collection?” Chloe asked as she took hold of his arm for balance and wiped her wet shoe on the carpet.

“Among other things,” Lucifer nodded, but Chloe didn’t seem to think he was being serious. He wanted to tell her again that they should leave, but before he had the chance, the Detective was rushing off to search the next room; gun raised.

 _Bloody Hell._ Looking over the trashed living room, Lucifer's eyes were inevitably drawn back to the bottles scattered across the floor. Some hadn’t even been smashed, but the amber and clear liquids they’d contained had still been poured across the floor, and even over some of the chairs.

Bending to pick up the only bottle with any alcohol left in it, something else caught Lucifer’s eye. A collection of picture frames sat on a chest of drawers, and one of them had fallen off and smashed in whatever struggle had taken place. He picked it up, and just like the other photos displayed on the drawers, the picture was of a happy couple. They were smiling and hugging, far too happy for people with such poor drinking habits, and Lucifer knew what the Detective was about to find.

"Lucifer," he heard Chloe say as she came back. "We've got a body."

"It wouldn't happen to be a woman, would it? One with blonde hair and glasses?" He asked, and held up one of the pictures. "Simmons and his partner?"

"Probably," Chloe agreed, then beckoned him to follow her into the next room.

Sure enough, there in the middle of the kitchen floor was the woman, with her lips drained of life and blood on the back of her head.

Azrael was definitely behind this, he just hadn’t expected her plan to be so brutal. Whoever the woman was she hadn’t deserved a death like that, but Lucifer knew what he had to do. His sister had set the scene, and now he had to sell the story to the Detective.

“This doesn’t make any sense,” Chloe stressed. “There was no obvious cause of death or blood at the other scenes. Why here?” Lucifer wasn’t sure if that was a rhetorical question or not, but when he saw her reaching for her phone, he knew he had to say something.

“Maybe the other bodies were moved postmortem?” He suggested quickly, repeating what he’d heard Ella say in the past about bloodless crime scenes. It worked for a moment. Chloe stared at him, her phone forgotten.

“Do you really believe that?” She asked incredulously.

“What else could it be, Detective?”

Continuing to stare at him, Chloe dropped her arms to her side and Lucifer knew she was suspicious of him. She’d already accused him once of trying to interfere with the case, and she wasn’t wrong.

“I think you’re hiding what’s really going on here,” she told him honestly.

“Trust me, this was the last thing I expected to find when we came here.”

“That doesn’t mean you don’t know what’s going on!” Tension rising along with Chloe’s voice, Lucifer fell silent. He wouldn’t lie to her, but nothing he could say would dissuade her from suspecting he knew more than he let on. Of course he knew more. He knew exactly who the killer was, and that she could never be arrested. His sister had a celestial licence to kill.

“Something’s going on, and you won’t tell me what,” Chloe spoke again, and Lucifer turned away from her. He couldn’t meet the Detective’s eyes when she looked so wounded. “I thought we were partners.”

“We are, Detective,” he assured her. “Which is exactly why--!” Lucifer paused. He shouldn’t have let his annoyance at Azrael get the better of him. All he’d done was confirm the Detective’s fears. He could see it in the way her eyes widened in realisation.

He’d let the mask slip, and Chloe was not going to let him put it back on.

“Exactly why... what?” She asked hesitantly, taking a few short steps closer to him. He wanted to step away from her, to create as much physical space between them as he could, but he couldn’t move. Especially not when Chloe reached out and lightly squeezed his arm.

“Lucifer...”

“We should leave,” was all he trusted himself to say. Reluctantly, he pulled his arm away from the Detective and made to leave the kitchen. He couldn’t say anything else without incriminating himself further, and denying her claims would only mean lying to her. The only thing he could do was leave, even if that meant Chloe not trusting him to work on any of her cases in the future.

“Lucifer, _wait_ ,” she said again, more urgently this time as she followed him and grabbed his arm.

“I knew you’d come,” another voice said, a man’s voice. Chloe’s hand was already off his arm and holding her gun, training it at the man from the smashed picture. He was in the middle of locking the front door as they walked in on him, and Lucifer noted how haggard he looked compared to the smiling man in all of the photographs. His black hair was lank, his five o’clock shadow had grown into a beard, and dark bags hung heavy under his eyes.

“I knew it,” he repeated, and Lucifer realised he was holding something small in his other hand. It glinted, even in the poor lighting, but he couldn’t quite make out what it was. “She said you’d come.”

“Who said?” Chloe asked gently, taking a slow and careful step forward. Lucifer wanted to reach out to stop her, to tell her that _he_ should be the one to move in front of _her_ , but he knew how the Detective would react to that.

“The one who killed--” Simmons’ voice broke off. His hands began to tremble, and he held onto the little silver object even tighter. “Who killed my Katie. She sent her to Heaven, and I can follow her. I don’t have to go back to Hell. All I gotta do is...” The man’s eyes darted across to the sofa a step away from him, and the huge dark stain of the alcohol poured over it. The alcohol _deliberately_ poured over it, Lucifer realised too late, and only had a second to pull Chloe back as Simmons flicked open a little silver lighter.

“Is kill the Devil.”

Everything and nothing seemed to happen all at once. The fire didn’t take immediately. Simmons panicked as he held the lighter to his own furniture, and Chloe raised her gun again. She called out a warning that Lucifer didn’t fully register, but just as she pulled the trigger the back of the sofa burst into flames and the shot knocked Simmons backwards.

Then the Detective was moving, and speaking again, but Lucifer was still caught on one little detail. _She_ had told Simmons to kill him.

He felt Chloe’s hands on him, creasing the back of his blazer as she dragged him into the kitchen and slammed the door.

“She told him to start a bloody _fire_?” Lucifer finally spoke, but even saying it out loud didn’t make it feel real. Chloe was right, it really didn’t make any sense.

“Who was he talking about?” Chloe’s voice broke through the fog of his shock at last, and he realised there was no point in evading her questions anymore. Things had gone too far as it was.

“My sister,” he answered frankly as he pressed his back against the door, hoping he could at least stop the growing smoke from seeping through it.

“Azrael?” The Detective asked, genuinely surprised, and Lucifer couldn’t fathom why. Azrael hardly came across as trustworthy. He should have remembered that himself, before he’d let her carry out her plan.

He just nodded in reply, and Chloe didn’t ask anything else. There wasn’t time to worry about his family issues, or where his sister was now. The black smoke from the living area was starting to drift in through the cracks between the door and its frame, bringing ash in with it. It swirled up into the room, as the heat and smoke rose to the ceiling, and Lucifer heard a little voice in the back of his mind.

“Grey snow,” he muttered, as he watched the little bits of ash floating in the air. He saw Chloe from the corner of his eye as she watched him, and covered her face with her sleeve.

“What?” She asked, puzzled and clearly trying to stay calm. She must have been trained not to panic, Lucifer knew, but that didn’t stop him from reaching out to squeeze her hand comfortingly.

He couldn’t exactly tell her that her daughter’s dream appeared to be coming true, but it all made sense. In his own nightmares, he’d been trapped, stopped from escaping by a wall of heat and fire. In Trixie’s, there’d been a room filled with grey snow, a monster with black wings…

Azrael had black wings, and the monster had taken Chloe away.

“Do you trust me, Detective?” He asked, and she hesitated for a moment, obviously still caught up in what they’d been arguing about, but she eventually nodded. “Then close your eyes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks as always to everyone for the kudos and comments!


	8. Revelations

Chloe didn't do as he'd asked straight away. She watched Lucifer with frantic eyes as he grabbed a dining chair and put it through the kitchen window. The glass cracked and webbed, like the ice under his feet in his dream, and he knew for certain then that falling was their only escape.

"What're you doing?" The Detective asked, and Lucifer could tell she was trying desperately not to panic.

"Getting us out of here," he told her, holding up his hand to stop her from peering out of the window. There was no ledge outside, nor a fire escape, and he couldn't risk Chloe realising that.

She glanced back towards the kitchen door, her sleeve over her mouth to block out the thick smoke still seeping into the room.

"We can't go back out there, Detective," Lucifer told her, but he suspected she already knew that. It was far too dangerous. She turned back to him, resigned, and he smiled to her as reassuringly as he could.

"Ready?" He asked, and Chloe nodded as she finally closed her eyes.

"You won't let go?"

"Never," he told her gently, and scooped her up into his arms. She didn’t seem shocked or uncomfortable about him picking her up. Chloe just wrapped her own arms around his neck as he cast one last look around the smoke-filled room. There was no time to warn her about what he intended to do, she’d only protest and slow them both down. So, without warning the Detective, Lucifer lifted her through the window and dived out.

She was nestled in his arms, her head rested against his shoulder, and she screamed in his ear when she realised they were falling. It wasn’t exactly how he’d have liked to hear her screaming his name, but at least she hadn’t let go in her panic. Chloe held her arms tighter around his shoulders and buried her face into his neck, until she realised that they weren’t falling at all; they were gliding.

Stretching out his wings to break their fall was easy enough, even when the wings pulled slightly on his back. The Detective’s added weight made little difference to his flying, just like her daughter’s weight hadn’t. It only took a flap or two of the great nuisances to keep them steady and safe. The next thing he heard, over the rush of air as they descended over the street, was Chloe’s gasp.

Lucifer felt her hair tickle his cheek as she looked behind him, and he braced himself for her panic, or whatever it was she might say to him.

“Lucifer... ” She whispered, and he waited for her to say something else, but no other words came. For a second, Lucifer worried he’d broken her.

“I’ve got you,” he promised, trying to comfort whatever was left of her mind, and to his surprise, Chloe just held him tighter and smiled. It was a shaky smile, uncertain, but still a smile. He’d take that. He’d take whatever she was willing to give him.

She gripped him tightly, even after realising they weren’t going to fall, but she wasn’t burying her face into his neck anymore. She was bravely, perhaps stubbornly, looking around them at the tops of the buildings as they swooped past. Then, even more to Lucifer’s surprise, she looked up behind him again, and stared at his wings in fascination. He could almost feel the exact spot that her eyes were focusing on, as he lazily flapped the bothersome things and guided them towards the lower buildings.

It felt intimate; far more intimate than when anyone else had seen his new wings. Maze was used to them - if not just as worried as he was at their return - Linda had been in awe, and Amenadiel was definitely jealous. It was almost as if he was naked under Chloe’s watchful stare. Usually he wouldn’t have minded that, but it stirred up all sorts of emotions that he didn’t want to think about, especially when mixed with the weight of her in his arms and pressed against his chest.

Awe at being flown, by the Devil himself, was the last thing Lucifer had expected to see from the Detective. He’d expected fear, or panic, but not wonder, and he certainly hadn’t expected to feel so exposed.

Unable to safely glide them down into the street where Chloe had parked her car, Lucifer landed them on the flat roof of a nearby shop. It was only two stories high, with a fire escape down the side. Even so late at night, or early in the morning, landing directly in the street would have been too risky.

He didn’t let go of her immediately, and Chloe didn’t move in his arms. Their eyes met, both of them clearly unsure of what to do or say, and after a moment of simply staring at one another, Lucifer gently lowered Chloe to her feet. Her wide-eyed look of shock flicked from his face to his wings, right as he rolled his shoulders and folded them away.

“Not exactly the way I’d imagined giving you proof of the divine,” Lucifer said, just for something to say to ease his own nerves. “But I thought it was better than… well, burning.” He was babbling, he realised, and he felt Chloe’s hand squeeze his arm. He took that to be her way of telling him that it was okay.

“I’ll understand if--”

“Lucifer, that was-- Sorry,” Chloe said as they spoke over the top of each other, and Lucifer realised that her cheeks were flushed. He wasn’t sure if that was from the cold air of flying, or something else. “You first.”

“Right,” Lucifer hesitated, straightening his cuffs so he had something to focus on other than the rosy cheeked Detective. “I’ll understand if you want to leave.”

“I… I don’t know what I want,” she answered quietly, but there was that smile again. It was a little less unsure than the first had been, and Lucifer couldn’t help but smile back. _She wasn’t afraid._

“I understand,” he answered with a nod, and Chloe’s smile turned sceptical. She looked him over; first his face, which he tried to keep neutral, and then the rest of his body. Had it been just a few hours before, Lucifer would have teased her for it, but now he really couldn’t think of anything to say.

“Do you?” She asked carefully, clearly not believing that he did. “Because this is... You’re Lucifer, Lucifer. _The_ Lucifer.”

“I am aware.”

“You’re really the Devil...”

 _Ah_ , Lucifer thought. _It’s finally hit her._

Chloe didn't seem to be able to decide if she wanted to laugh or panic, but the latter was quickly winning.

“Okay,” she said, and repeated it a few more times for good measure. “I’m okay.”

“Detective, I think you might need a sit down.” Lucifer took her hand, half expecting her to rip it away. “And maybe a stiff drink.”

Chloe squeezed his fingers with all her strength, as if she was afraid to let go. Or maybe she needed to really remind herself that he was real.

“No. No, I’m fine,” she said firmly. Taking a deep breath, the Detective held it in an attempt to calm herself, and exhaled through her nose. “I just need to call this in. I need to finish,” she gestured vaguely towards the apartment buildings and then themselves, “ _This_.” Lucifer assumed she meant the case, and nodded for her to go on. “Then we need to talk. Later.”

He was relieved that she was willing to talk to him, but Lucifer didn't know if he was ready to tell the Detective the whole truth. How would she react to the news that she was a miracle, who may or may not have been created for him? Then there was the issue of his vulnerability around her, and she hadn’t even seen his devil face yet.

He really wasn't ready for that talk, he realised.

“Later,” Lucifer agreed with a single nod, but just as he was about to take his cue and leave, Chloe grabbed his sleeve.

“I’ll take you back to Lux,” she insisted, but he could see how unsettled she still was. She was trying to be brave. “Unless you want to...” Chloe waved her hand again, this time towards his back, and for once it was Lucifer’s turn to roll his eyes at the Detective.

“No, I don’t,” he said disdainfully, and didn’t miss the faint upturn of Chloe’s lips. “I’ve already used the irksome things more than I’d care to.”

“Then that's settled,” she decided, nodding affirmatively, and headed for the fire escape.

"Are you sure, Detective?" Lucifer hesitated, but quickly followed after her. Chloe turned to him, and stared at him with an unreadable expression. She seemed to be searching for something in his own face, and when she'd decided she'd found it, the Detective gave him a small smile and a nod.

"I'm not leaving you here, Lucifer."

* * *

 

The drive back to Lux had been quiet, neither of them really knew what to say, but it wasn’t an awkward silence. Chloe had called in the fire, what Simmons had done, and the shooting. She told Lucifer that she’d have to leave straight away, she’d have to file a report on what had happened, but she _would_ come back to talk to him. She seemed rather adamant that he had to believe her about that.

Unfortunately for Lucifer, the Detective's promise did little to ease his mind. He wanted to stay with her after what Azrael had done, but she'd been so determined to get back to work, and he wanted to give her space. It wasn’t until he was in the elevator to his penthouse that he felt the suffocating presence of the last person he wanted to see, and the doors slid open to welcome him with the sickly scent of lilies.

“Brilliant, you’re here,” Lucifer drawled, with as little enthusiasm as possible. He spotted his sister standing outside on the balcony, in a bright red dress. “And I’m pleased to see you’ve had time for a wardrobe change between all your scheming.”

Azrael turned slowly to face him, a carefree smile on her red lips, and her arms outstretched as if she wanted to embrace him. He didn’t come any closer, and her bright smile fell when she realised he wasn’t going to return the warm greeting. He wouldn’t fall for that again.

“Why did you tell Simmons to kill me?” Lucifer asked, and his sister seemed taken off guard by the question, but quickly recovered.

“It's not like I thought he'd succeed," Azrael smirked. "I only needed him to threaten you so your human would shoot him. It seemed the best way to let her catch her killer,” she finally answered, so matter-of-factly in that Scottish brogue of hers, that it somehow annoyed Lucifer even more than her happy smiling had. “You’re immortal, Luci. I wasn’t going to tell him to shoot your wee friend.”

“You told him to _shoot_ me?” His sister’s plan just kept getting worse the more he heard about it, and he was not going to tell her about his vulnerability issues around his _wee friend_.

Why hadn’t he questioned her more about her plan before he’d blindly agreed to it? He belatedly realised that this was probably why Azrael had reminded him so much of their mother. Her smiles, her caring touches, her claim of loving him; all brilliant methods of manipulating him.

“Don’t tell me you’re afraid of some wee human projectiles, brother?” His sister asked smoothly, with her smile slowly returning.

“Oh, I’m not,” Lucifer answered, a false smile of his own plastered across his face. “I’m more concerned about why your protege decided fire was more effective than bullets. I know he went to Hell, but that seems a little extreme.”

“What?” Azrael frowned, and he tried so hard not to fall for her look of surprise. She couldn’t be surprised. This was her plan - her escaped soul that she was meant to return to Hell - surely she knew how unstable they could be. “That wasn’t supposed to happen.”

“Yes, it turns out you don’t know humans as well as you think,” he sighed loudly, deliberately rubbing it in. “But I do. Trips to Hell tend to leave them a tad unhinged.” Lucifer took a step forward, his smile disappearing as his sister’s did. “They’ll do _anything_ to avoid going back, and you promised them something that wasn’t yours to give.”

“I had to do something,” Azrael snapped back. “You’re the one who refused to help Amitiel, brother, not me. I had to fix _your_ mess.”

 _Neither of you ever helped me,_  Lucifer thought bitterly, but he chose to say nothing and let an awkward silence fall between them. He wanted Azrael to feel guilt. He wanted her to know what she’d done, and judging by the war of emotions flashing across her face, she knew.

“I’m going to put this right,” she said finally, jaw set into a firm line as she turned back towards the city. He had no idea what her plan was this time, if she even had one, but he didn’t care. Lucifer just wanted Azrael to leave. Nothing good ever came of visits from his siblings.

“I wouldn’t fly out of here, if I were you,” he said conversationally, and watched with satisfaction as Azrael’s confusion turned into realisation. “I think you, me, and Amenadiel are finally about to have something in common.”

With a final, stubborn glance back towards him, his sister stretched out her black wings and jumped over the edge. The heavy feeling of death and lilies went with her, he felt like he could breathe again, and behind him Lucifer heard movement from inside the penthouse.

He turned curiously, and saw the pointed ears of his latest demon companion peeking out from over the top of the bar.

“You can come out now, Pruflas,” he said as he walked back inside, feeling at a loss now that he didn’t have his sister to take his anger out on. He supposed there was always Pruflas, but he’d already done that once, and Maze had stopped him.

“Are you alright, sir?” The cat asked as he straightened up, and Lucifer realised for the first time that he was wearing a black suit and tie. It wasn’t one of his own suits, it wasn’t quite up to Lucifer's own designer standards, but it was tailored perfectly to fit the cat’s unusual shape.

“Where did you get that?” Lucifer asked, mildly impressed by the demon’s choice.

“Mazikeen said I should look the part, sir,” Pruflas answered, proudly straightening the front of his new outfit.

“Right,” Lucifer nodded, at a loss for what else to say. No wonder the suit was so nice, if Maze had chosen it.

“Sir,” the second demon said, wringing his hands together. “Remember when I told you I’d escaped with another?”

 _Not more confessions_ , Lucifer thought, and brushed past the demon. Pruflas followed him hastily, and he realised that the demon wasn’t going to say anything else without being given an answer first.

“Yes, yes,” Lucifer urged. “I remember.”

“It was Nybbas, sir,” the demon feline blurted out, and Lucifer stopped midstep. He turned on Pruflas so quickly, that the poor cat took a step back and nearly tripped over his own feet.

“Nybbas,” Lucifer repeated slowly. “Nybbas as in… the demon of visions--”

“And dreams,” Pruflas nodded frantically. “He saw the angel of death when I did, sir.”

Lucifer just stared at his second demon. He didn’t know what to say, and the longer he stared, the more nervous Pruflas became. He worried his clawed hands together, as he stared back at his former lord, and carried on speaking.

“He thought you ought to know, but he was too fearful to approach you himself, so I said I would. He… Well, he sees everything, sir, doesn’t he? We couldn’t _not_ let you know.”

Lucifer laughed. He didn’t know why, it wasn’t particularly funny, but hearing the real reason for his dreams was a relief. Pruflas smiled tentatively, and he could see the hopeful glint in the cat’s yellow eyes.

 _Of course_ it had been Nybbas, not Hell itself reaching out to him. The demon's prophecies used places and things the dreamer already knew about. That was why he'd dreamt of Hell, and Trixie's mind had turned ash into snow.

“You’re not mad, sir?”

“No, Pruflas,” Lucifer assured him. “I don’t think I am.” How could he be mad when the plotting of two demons had saved the Detective? It also explained why the disturbing presences had felt so strong; it hadn’t just been Azrael following him around.

Lucifer thought back to the second crime scene, where his sister had first found him, and vaguely recalled a man bumping into him. He was sure he’d recognised the gruff voice, but when he’d turned to look at who it was, the man was gone.

“Where is Nybbas now?”

“Gone, I expect,” Pruflas answered. “He did what he came to do. Is there anything I can do for you, sir?”

“Yes,” Lucifer answered thoughtfully and turned back towards the bar. "Send a message to Mazikeen. I have a lot to share with her."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This week's been a busy one for me, and I haven't had chance to reply to any comments yet, but I wanted to get this chapter up today. Thank you to everyone who commented on the last chapter and for the kudos!


	9. Every Good Devil

The rest of his day had gone by in an uneventful drag. It hadn’t been until the late morning that Maze had been able to get away from babysitting the little human, and had joined him at Lux. He’d filled her in on everything that had happened, tried to calm her down when he’d mentioned Azrael’s plan, and assured her that the Detective wouldn’t stop her from seeing the child. Mercifully, she didn’t blame him for having to show Chloe his wings.

Pruflas kept the supply of drinks steady as they talked. They didn’t really need to drink, it didn’t technically do anything for them, but the taste of Scotch was familiar and comforting.

After that, Maze had sat at the bar with the demon cat, and watched as Lucifer tried to play his piano. It didn’t work. All afternoon he’d been trying to think of something he wanted to play, but every tune he started didn’t feel right, and he’d abruptly ended them all with a slam of his hands on the keys in frustration.

What if the Detective didn’t turn up? That was his main concern. She’d promised she would. She’d insisted that they would talk about what had happened, but as the hours ticked by and the day started to draw to an end, Lucifer’s worry started to rise. Not that he'd admit to being worried.

Pruflas poured out another round of drinks, but it was Maze that brought his over. She set it down on the top of the piano and placed a comforting hand on his shoulder.

“Stop worrying,” she said firmly, in that blunt tone that only his Maze could make sound caring.

“You can’t tell me _you’re_ not worried, Maze,” Lucifer answered, and took a healthy swig of his drink, almost finishing it in one go. “She’s your friend, as well.”

“Yeah,” the demon smirked and stepped back. “My _friend_.” Despite her words of encouragement, Lucifer could see Maze was on edge. She hid it well, and to anyone that hadn’t known her for aeons, maybe they wouldn’t have noticed it, but Lucifer did.

“You forget that I know you, Mazikeen,” he lifted his glass to her in a mock toast, and downed what was left of his drink. “The Detective knows you won’t hurt the child. That doesn’t mean she won’t want to speak to you, as well.”

Pressing her lips into a thin line, Maze gave a single nod and leaned back down onto the piano. She seemed more thoughtful now, and behind her, Pruflas wiped down the bar for the third time that afternoon. Lucifer couldn’t tell if the demon had a newfound passion for cleaning now that he’d escaped the ashes and embers of Hell, or if he was just nervous and didn’t know what else to do.

“So, what’re you gonna tell her?” Maze asked, and Lucifer stared down at his hands resting silently on the piano keys. “How much does she actually know?”

“She knows I’m the Devil,” Lucifer made himself say. “Which means she’ll know you’re a demon. What more is there to say?”

Maze stared at him for a moment, whilst Pruflas noisily clinked glasses together behind her and Lucifer’s piano went unplayed. He couldn’t tell if his favourite demon was angry with him or concerned. She surprised him when she spoke, and it turned out to be neither.

“You’re not gonna mention the whole miracle thing, then?” She said it quietly, aware that Chloe may walk in at any moment.

“Not unless she asks the right questions,” he said stubbornly. She’d already found out about the divine and the infernal, he didn’t want to drop the bombshell that she’d been made for him on her as well. Not until he felt the time was right.

“Any requests, Pruflas?” Lucifer called, changing the subject before he could find out whether or not Maze agreed with him. Pruflas looked up and shook his head, and Maze scoffed.

“You won’t be able to play when you’re like this,” she pointed out, and with a playful smirk added, “I know you.”

The ding of the elevator interrupted Lucifer’s reply, and he only had time to cast a quick warning glance to Pruflas before a small, excitable eight year-old burst in.

“Lucifer!” A pair of tiny arms wrapped tight around his shoulders from behind, and if he hadn’t known the child well enough by now, he’d have wondered if the little girl was trying to kill him.

“Yes. Hello, child.” He pat her tiny hands awkwardly and waited for her to let go. Maze only watched him with a smug smile, and when Trixie moved from himself to the demon, she accepted the tiny hug as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

“Am I interrupting something?” His heart jumped when he heard the sound of the Detective’s voice, and he reluctantly realised that Maze was right. He really had been worrying.

“Of course not, Detective,” Lucifer told her hurriedly as he stood from the piano stool. He turned around and saw Chloe looking warily between Maze and the stranger at the bar. Luckily, for Lucifer’s own sanity as well as the Detective and Trixie’s, Pruflas had shifted into his human form and put on his sunglasses just in time.

“Would you like a drink?” Lucifer offered, trying to distract her from the second demon.

“Yeah,” Chloe nodded, “I think I’ll need it. Thanks.” She was hovering too close to the elevator for Lucifer’s liking, even as she looked at him and accepted his offer. Did she think she wouldn’t be welcomed into his penthouse, or had she really been scared all along?

“New bartender?” She asked, watching as Maze guided Trixie away to the balcony.

“Oh, Pruflas is just my...” _Demon_? No, that was too much, too soon. “My butler.”

“Your _butler_?” She stared at him, a playful glint of the Detective he knew returning to her eyes.

“Every good devil needs one,” he grinned and sat back down at the piano. She didn’t flinch at the reminder of who he really was, and her smile slowly started to return at his poor joke. That was a start, but he was struggling to tell what was really going through her head.

Chloe stared back at him, lost in her own thoughts. He let her have her silence, and quietly patted the space on the stool beside to him. She came closer and sat down, but neither of them said anything. Whatever she was thinking, she clearly needed time to process it all.

“Detective--”

“Your drinks, sir,” Pruflas interrupted, holding out two glasses of Scotch on a tray.

“ _Sir_?” Chloe repeated, teasing him as she accepted the drink, but Lucifer didn’t miss the slight tremor in her hands.

She studied Pruflas, and Lucifer studied her. The dark sunglasses, indoors and so late in the day, were certainly out of place over the man’s eyes. That seemed to be the main thing the Detective focused on, and he saw the exact moment her mind caught up and she realised who Pruflas was. Or rather, _what_ Pruflas was.

“He’s not human, is he?” Chloe hesitated.

Lucifer wondered if he should tell her about Pruflas and Trixie, or Maze and Shax, but he’d given the child his word that he wouldn’t. He may not have accepted his feather back as payment for that particular deal, but going back on his word would have felt like betraying the little girl.

“One thing at a time,” he decided, accepting his own drink from the demon and sending him away.

Chloe and Lucifer lapsed back into silence after Pruflas had left, no doubt to find something else to clean. He could tell she was thinking about something, as she swirled her drink around in its glass and got swept up into her own thoughts. He stayed silent only because he thought it might help her to work through what was happening.

“What you’ve been hiding…” The Detective began, and trailed off to take a sip of her drink. He remained quiet, waiting for her to finish, and had a feeling he already knew what she was going to ask.

“How did those other people really die?”

Lucifer hesitated, trying to think of the best way to reply.

“Let’s just call it the kiss of death,” he settled on, answering as honestly and as casually as he could. There was no point in lying now, and it was probably better not to. If Chloe knew the truth, then maybe there would be some reasoning with the detective in her to close the case now that the supposed killer was dead.

“Like the Grim Reaper?” She asked, her nose screwed up as if she couldn’t believe she was seriously asking that. He couldn’t blame her for trying to make sense of the situation, with what little humans knew of the realities of the supernatural, but Lucifer couldn’t help chuckling.

“No,” he corrected lightly. “The _angel_ of death. My sister.” The look Chloe gave him to that reply made Lucifer realise just how calm she’d been up until that point. She’d been dealing with this new reality surprisingly well, with the logical thinking she always had, but hearing that his sister really was the killer was clearly too much for the Detective. She looked a mixture of angry and perturbed.

“You were protecting your sister,” she said slowly, swirling the Scotch around in her glass again. “After she killed people?”

“Azrael can’t be arrested,” Lucifer tried to explain. “She needs to be punished for her misdeeds, but human laws can’t do that. I, on the other hand, _can_ ,” he grinned. “And I know just the little demon to help me.”

He should have decided that Azrael needed to be punished the moment he found out she’d told Shax about Trixie, but it was the burning apartment that finally did it. Azrael had put the Detective’s daughter in danger, killed an innocent, and almost killed the Detective herself. He’d done far too much to protect his sister.

The sound of the Detective’s daughter laughing came from out on the balcony, and both Lucifer and Chloe turned towards the large windows to see the girl and Maze playing. The demon lifted Trixie up into the air effortlessly, and the girl kicked her legs and held out her arms as if she was flying. When Lucifer looked back down to Chloe, still sitting quietly beside him, he could see her smile softly.

“You mean Maze,” Chloe surmised, ignoring her anger at his sister for now. “Is she really…?”

“Maze is--” Lucifer stopped himself, remembering the time he’d revealed his devil face to Doctor Linda, and how it had upset the demon. “Well, maybe she should be the one to answer that.” That wasn’t being as truthful with Chloe as he wanted to be, and he knew it, but telling her the truth meant outting Maze, in a way. He’d already done that to her once before. Lucifer at least wanted to give his demon a chance to say the words for herself.

The Detective clearly already knew what his evasion meant. Sucking in a breath, she downed the rest of her drink and set the glass down.

“It’s a lot to take in,” she admitted quietly, wavering. “All this stuff about Heaven and demons… I didn’t think it was possible.” Chloe paused, looking down at her hands, “But I think a part of me just knew.”

“I should think so,” Lucifer said, trying to keep his tone lighthearted. “I did keep telling you.”

“Yeah,” she did her best to hide her smile, but he could see it and it made him grin even wider. “I’m sorry.”

“You have nothing to apologise for, Detective,” Lucifer told her sincerely, reaching out to take her hand. He cupped it between both of his, their hands over her knee, and gave her what he hoped was a reassuring smile. She was understandably nervous, but so was he. When Chloe let her smile grow, lighting up her face, and didn’t pull her hand away, Lucifer could feel his heart beginning to pound.

“Lucifer, I mean it,” the Detective insisted, putting her free hand over both of his. “I didn’t believe you, and you shouldn’t have felt like you couldn’t talk to me.”

Was it just his imagination and wishful thinking, or was Chloe leaning closer to him? Lucifer looked down at their joined hands, unable to believe that she was still willing to be so close to him barely a day into finding out the truth.

“I didn’t think it’d be this straight forward,” he whispered in amazement. “I thought you’d panic, or go slightly insane.” _Like they always do_ , he neglected to add on, and met the Detective’s eyes with wonder. “But not you, Detective.” _You’re special_. Lucifer wasn’t willing to admit how special Chloe really was, not just yet. He still hadn't worked out what her being a miracle really meant, or why she'd been put in his path. That was something he still wasn't ready to tell her. She'd never accept that she was created for him. No one would.

“Trixie helped,” Chloe told him, the corner of her lips curled in a poorly hidden smile. If only she knew what he’d been thinking. “The pictures she’d been drawing in school,” she explained. “I guessed she must have known, so, we talked. She said she wasn’t afraid of you.”

“And why would she be?” Lucifer questioned. “I’m a delight.” That made her smile break through; bright and happy and completely at ease with him. Lucifer beamed back and started to close the gap between them, when Pruflas returned out of nowhere.

“A Patrick is downstairs asking for you, sir. I told him you were busy,” he announced, without a trace of an apology or shame for barging in on their moment. Because that’s what it was, wasn’t it? Another moment missed. Maybe he should take some advice from the Detective and give the demon cat a little bell.

“Tell him we’re opening as usual,” he answered, exasperated. Did he have to do everything around here?

“Yes, sir,” Pruflas said and bowed his head before he left again.

“Lovely,” Lucifer muttered, turning his attention back to Chloe. She leaned away and pulled their hands apart; probably remembering where she was and _who_ she was with. She was silent for a few moments, and Lucifer started to feel awkward. Maybe he’d misjudged the moment and completely overstepped some invisible line he didn’t know about.

“Hey,” Chloe said and nudged his shoulder with her own, trying to lighten the mood. “We should get you a cape. All good heroes need capes.”

“I don’t need a cape, Detective. I’m not Batman,” he huffed, thinking of how ridiculous one would look with his fine suits.

The Detective laughed, and he felt all of his indignation instantly drain away. She smiled, the awkward moment gone.

“But you did save me,” she reminded him.

“Of course I did,” he answered earnestly and reached for her hand again. “You have your offspring to thank for that, actually. Well, partly,” Lucifer grinned. “A few demons helped, as well, but that dream of hers made me realise something. You have a very special child.”

“ _Demons_?” Chloe’s eyes darted towards the door Pruflas had disappeared into, and Lucifer placed his other hand over hers to get her attention back.

“Yes, it’s best we don’t go into all that now,” he dismissed, trying to keep up his smile. “The child is safe. She has me and Maze on her side.”

“I thought she was _nothing to crow about_ ,” Chloe repeated, welcoming the distraction from the mention of demons. “What made you change your mind?”

“Thank another sister of mine,” he told the Detective, determined to be as honest as he could. “The so-called angel of truth. Your little tearaway saw me, the real me, and she… well, she was kind.”

Chloe’s smile softened at that. She gave his hand a light squeeze, and nodded at his comment, because of course she already knew that her daughter was kind. Trixie accepted everyone and everyone seemed to love the small human in return. It wasn’t surprising that her daughter had accepted even Satan himself, and had him willing to do anything for her; including rejecting payment for one of their deals.

“Trixie’s a good kid,” Chloe agreed thoughtfully, looking down at their hands. “So, your sisters are the angels of truth and death,” she pointed out, and Lucifer nodded. “What are you?”

Of all the questions she’d already asked him, or all the ones she no doubt still had, that wasn’t something Lucifer had expected her to ask. Trixie had said she thought he was an angel, but that was the naivety of a child. Chloe was different. She shouldn’t have seen him as an angel as well, because he _wasn’t_ one.

“I’m the Devil, Detective,” he purred, masking his unease behind a sultry smile. “I’m far too interesting to be an angel.”

Chloe clearly wasn’t convinced. She seemed to see straight through his show and shook her head at him.

“You weren’t always,” she pointed out, and that stumped him. The Detective, living up to her title, clearly wanted an answer. He knew her well enough to know - and the last couple of days should have been enough to remind him - that Chloe wouldn’t stop until she’d solved whatever mystery was set before her.

“The clue’s in the name,” he conceded, because he did _used_ to be the angel of something, just like he _used_ to have a different name. It didn’t mean that’s who he was now.

Chloe deliberated his response for a moment, with an almost adorable frown of concentration.

“Light?” She asked at last, making Lucifer smile ruefully.

“Light- _bringer,_ ” he corrected gently. “But you can just call me Lucifer.”

Chloe laughed at his poor attempt at humour and shuffled closer to him. He let her, watching the Detective with fascination. Her uncertainty was obvious when she was so close, he could feel her hand trembling slightly in his own, but she didn’t back away. She searched his face, his eyes, and then she kissed him.

It took Lucifer a second for his mind to whirl back into focus. He hadn't been expecting her to _kiss_ him, not after everything she'd found out. Some people might have found the idea of kissing the Devil thrilling, but not the Detective. Chloe didn't strike him as that kind of person.

He parted his lips to say something in protest, about how she must have lost her mind after all, but she shushed him; actually _shushed_ the Devil. That seemed more like the Detective he knew, and knowing that, he gave in to his desires and kissed her back.

Snaking his arm around her waist, Lucifer pulled Chloe closer and savoured the gasp that escaped her lips when their bodies connected. The sound was so sweet he thought he might burst, and then it was over all too soon. The Detective pulled back before he could deepen the kiss, but he caught the glimpse of a tremulous smile as she pressed her forehead to his.

"I can see it," she whispered breathlessly against his lips. Before he could follow after her and kiss her again, more thoroughly this time, she leaned back and slipped out of his grasp.

A pang of disappointment ached in his chest, until he realised why she’d pulled away. Her daughter came running in, beaming at the two of them, with Maze following at a much slower pace behind.

“Hey, monkey,” Chloe smiled as the girl sat beside her on what little bit of space was left on his piano stool. Lucifer just watched the two of them in wonder. Even as Maze stood beside him, he struggled to make his mind focus on anything else.

She’d kissed him. The Detective knew the truth and she’d _kissed_ him, and then said… that.

_She can see it?_

“Are you gonna actually play something now?” His demon asked, and Lucifer finally snapped out of his stunned silence. He looked to Maze, who looked back at him expectantly with her eyebrows raised.

With only a nod, Lucifer cleared his throat and placed his hands over the keys. It took him just a second to think of what to play, and this time the tune came naturally to him. His fingers danced over the keys, starting the light, music box-like melody.

Maze snorted and rolled her eyes when she realised what he was playing, but they still shared a knowing smirk when Lucifer looked up at her.

“You really have gone soft,” the demon teased.

Lucifer looked pointedly down at Trixie, then back up to Maze with a playful smile.

“And you haven’t?”

Beside him, the Detective sat quietly and watched his hands as he played, her arm around Trixie. It took her a moment to realise he’d started watching her, until she looked up and their eyes met.

“I like it,” Chloe encouraged gently.

Without thinking, Lucifer began to play slower. “I thought you might, Detective.”

She smiled softly at him, and Lucifer smiled back. He knew then, without a doubt, that they were going to be alright.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd planned to get the final chapter up a lot sooner, but here we are! I wanted the story to go out on a high, and I think/hope I achieved that.  
> The song Lucifer decides to play at the end is [Heaven Can Wait](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8Prycxk7mM).  
> Thank you to everyone who's commented on this and left kudos. It's all been so positive and encouraging, and I've really appreciated it!

**Author's Note:**

> I just wanna say a quick thank you to my friends, coilingearth and Aeshna_cyanea, for making me feel a little less nervous about posting this second part. It took longer to write than I’d planned, and I promise, there is fluff in the future!  
> [@mareyshelley on tumblr]


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